


The Fallen City

by TJ_Taz



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alban Mayfair, Broken Families, Carola Lucian, City of Dreams, Determination, Dreams vs. Reality, Dreamsharing, Elegant Swearing, England (Country), Fallen city, Gale Mayfair, Hope, Loneliness, Mistakes, Modern Era, New story, Novel, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tala Mayfair, The Fallen City, Trauma, Unbreaking Will, city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 57,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28509951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TJ_Taz/pseuds/TJ_Taz
Summary: Do you remember it?There was a time we all did…We once loved it, we were once nurtured by it.A City, so grand, so beautiful. So enthralling, we promised we would always believe. We promised it we’d never let go.But you did. You all did. And now that City that nurtured you lies in ruin.You ruined it.Times have changed now, Humanity’s end is coming.My name is Gale Mayfair. If you are listening you have a chance, if you wish to survive you must return to the City.
Comments: 5





	1. Man's Loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to The Fallen City. Taz here, I want to take the moment to say that there are trigger warnings throughout this story. It is in no way a 'gentle' novel. There are grim moments, dark humour and violence riddled throughout. If that is not your kind of thing than I strong suggest you turn back. I do not want to upset anyone.   
> To everyone else, goodluck! And I hope you enjoy

"Do you Remember it? There was a time we all did. Do you remember falling? So many of us still do. You jolt awake and your heart's only just started beating again. Do you remember why? Do you remember where we ended up?

"There was a time we would close our eyes and awaken in a City of dreams, a city of pure grace. Crafted fresh from the wants of those that went to it. The City rose, it grew, its towers of glass and stone etched with storys long forgotten and those yet to come. It was a world of endless colours, of endless pictures. Spires that rose for miles, and descended just as far from its crystal landscape under the perpetual dawn. Causeways of glass winding and intertwining like the fates of those that went to it. 'Inspiration' you might call it.

"And in time you forgot it, you abandoned it, and you lived with a lack of creativity in a life of monotony. You had to cast it out, you had to shut it away, you left it to ruin. All of you. You left our great city to die. Our heart, all of us. And you let it die, and I know why.

"You feared the fact that the City pushed us to work beyond the here and now. It drove you to push yourselves to your limits, to become your true selves and find your strength. It drove you to keep falling, at it's very touch you now recoil like a wounded animal, it became instinctual. It became wrong. Your. Courage was gone.

It drove you on to shape not just the day but your life at the cost of that fleeting moment and it, through its tender and caring touch to each of us, would shape our species as a whole. Like the gods many worship, the City was it. Man created it, and the City made us.

Yet you chose to live day by day. Meaningless... Pointless, with no achievement to be had by its end. You chose to live in the now, a life of monotony. A life without imagination. You gave up on your dreams. You killed the City.

"But you listen here. This is what you've done: Deep at the City's heart, where it has always stood, there's a clock counting, it's approaching midnight. Soon it will stand no more, and after that, any one of you could be the catalyst of our destruction. To save yourselves you must wake up to the world, harness the inspiration and power for greatness you all lost long ago. It's not without hope. You forgot the City. You can remember it. You must return to the City."

The man turned off his radio as he finished talking. The old device whirred one last time before fading into silence. He rested his hand on it like a parting friend. His daily plea for help fell silent. He didn't even offer a moment to listen for a reply. They weren't worth that… Not anymore.

With effort he pushed himself from the cluttered desk, and a heave he rose from the worn chair. Wavering on his feet for a brief moment, he stood hunched high above his kingdom, it equally as worn as he was. His hand swiped up a lit cigarette in a makeshift ashtray. He puffed on it carelessly as he stumbled from the room. The sounds of the world outside filled his ears like the unfettered march of an invading army upon his realm of silence.

With a shove his bedroom door caved open, knocking aside boxes and possessions with little care. He sat down, reaching for a dirtied glass of whiskey, he took several mouthfuls before laying himself down upon the creaking bed, his cigarette still in-between cracked lips the man puffed away until he felt sleep lay claim to him…

And at its whisper he willingly let it...

* * *

He waited... He could feel the world around him changing. His eyes still sealed shut. He felt the bed move away from him. He felt the sensation of falling, falling from the waking world.

Yet he remained unshaken. He didn't jolt, he didn't shudder…

He could suddenly feel solid ground beneath him, beneath boots never worn. His body felt like new. A steady breeze blew over him, He could feel it flow over material not made by the hands of any man. The gentle whisper turned to a barely audible song, a faint note played from far away heralding his return. With slow steps every time he opened his eyes to the glorious city around him.

As he stepped away from where he'd awoken barely hours before he let it sink in for a moment, like it did every time. A tantalising peace fell over his troubled mind. Relief almost. A relief that yet still, it had survived another night. He let himself wash the torment of the waking world away in that relief. his hands rested on a waist high wall of framed, cracked, almost faceted clear mineral, inset in a warm copper frame.

Its surface was one of the most intrinsic of details. One beyond that of any man or machine, like it was made to be just so. Each cut, each inclusion lined up perfectly with the gentle facets of its surface. A texture pleasing on sight and on touch. Gold veins wound through the material, giving it the feel they floated like they were frozen in ice. A gentle blue tint gave a feel of a cool winter's morning.

Such intricacies were common in the city, from up close it was glorious…

But looking from afar it radiated.

The man's eyes drifted up from the raised causeway to the furthest reaches of the crystal canyon. Each wall was composed of many unique spires, each one rose like perfect stalagmites high into the sky. Patterns of infinite complexity covered the faces of each one. The crystal-like mineral of each seemed to glow in the light of a perpetual dawn sun. This light ran around each tower, through each causeway, streaming throughout the city. The patterns and murals on every wall painted themselves with a thousand colours, each one stretching a mile into the sky. The highest reaches of each spire were capped with crowns and points rivaling any made by mortal men for mortal men. It captured the elegance of humanity, the strength of legions, and the will of each person born who could reach it...

At Least that's how he remembered it…

If he could've willed it too, he'd have lived in that fantasy forever… Try as he might he couldn't hold onto that glorious image. He couldn't stop the inevitable creep of reality that faded the colours from his vision.

Its glory days were long gone...

He looked past his hands enshrouded in black mineral gauntlets, at the wall he rested on. The metal wrapped around it long rusted and broken, cast amongst the crystal were cracks that didn't belong, slicing through those that did.. Chunks had long broken away, sections had long vanished into the aether.

His eyes quivered upwards once again. He glared down the crystal canyon. Its floor was broken by a massive crevice, stretching across the huge gulf between the spires where a massive boulevard once lay, depths many fathoms down to the fog wall beyond. He looked across the spires at the tainted decay that stained the city of wonder, the walls split and shattered wide open, destroying the once beautiful fascure of thousands of towers. Where mighty steel frames once hung, metal now drooped splayed like rope. Debris covered every surface, twinkling each with the twilight of dying dreams in the low sun. Dust fell like ash, sparkling as if they were lights themselves from the broken pinnacles of every tower. Each one stood splintered and sundered, however stand they still did..

When one would imagine a city abandoned for decades, images of nature reclaiming it and it turning to a thing of almost ghastly beauty would spring forth. The City though didn't have that privilege, when everyone forgot about it, it just began to die. There was no beauty. There was no glorious antiquity. It was no more beautiful than staring at a fallen friend...

Even the mightiest crystal towers did not survive the decay, The pinnacles of the spires leaned far, with most being broken off completely. Some towers were just gone, taken completely to the ground. The wind blew through, scattering the crystal, like sand. The once ornate and beautiful decorations were now almost colourless, worn, and their beauty long forgotten. The world was grey and monochrome.

The world was lifeless…

It was near motionless…

For awhile.

The man listened carefully as the wind brought the sound of a colossal crash in the distance, signalling the collapse of another one of the city's mile high spires.

The man frowned as he heard it. In frustration born from endless rage he pressed his hands against the wall he leaned upon, gripping it firm. Firmer and firmer, hard enough for it to shatter.

Yet he could feel its surface change against the skin of his gauntlet. He felt it like it moved against his own. The stained and cracked mineral restored itself, becoming its former brilliance once more. Its facets were cut back into its surface, flowing like water on a gentle sea. Its veins began to shine with gold once more, the metal lost its rust, and emanating out from his hands the wall became itself once more. Like someone had taken just the tiniest glimpse of that glorious image and pasted it upon the muted ruin. Although it wasn't enough. The decay fought back, like the city now seemingly wanted to die. Everything beyond an area no more than a few feet across remained stained with desolation, the perimeter and endless battle of healing and opening wounds.

He ran his hands gently across the repaired material, like he was feeling it for the first time. He could feel its edges, he could feel its faces. Its gentle smoothness like an eroded crystal. Yet he could feel more. He felt it vibrate. The world had begun to shake faintly, almost unnoticeable. Like dominos, the collapse of the distant tower had started something more.

He stepped back, resting his hand on the chest plate bound upon his body. Just like the wall it restored itself. The plates of formerly rusted and cracked metal and mineral restored to new, with a gentle hum the edges of each one lit up a vibrant blue glow. The man knelt down slightly, before launching himself in the air as the causeway itself collapsed beneath him.

As he ascended many feet into the air he began to slow. The City's immortal laws tried to cast their will upon him, but he denied gravity that right. The plates on his shoulder blades glowed ever brighter, he didn't fly. He hovered, yet to the City below he continued to rise.

From his new vantage point he could see the causeway wasn't the only thing falling. The man kicked himself forward, flying across the skies like a superhero in between the spires as the sundering began. The cracking land boomed like an earthquake.

He glanced back, his eyes thinned as he watched a colossal hole rapidly expand, claiming the causeways, skyways and bridges, it joined with the crack below him, shortly before it started to take down the spires.

The first one began to lean, moaning like a dying animal. Its peak slammed into its opposite, snapping it in an enormous cacophony of shattering stone, cracking crystal and splintering metal, the booming clap was slowly drowned by loud rumble as the spires around it began to descend. The man looked down at the district pulling away from him. The surfaces shook and crumbled, wreckage dancing across it. The spires began to splinter, rendering themselves into debris, to become dust. Ahead he could see a rising wall, the edge of the collapse that hung like a new cliff. He took a frantic dive, accelerating faster before flipping over to enter a sliding crash back to the ground.

The man stood up, the sole witness to the fall of another realm. He watched as the spires began to accelerate as the ground they trusted as their base betrayed them and fell into the dawn, the first tips of the towers came by. With a slow salute he silently said a permanent goodbye to the last spires. The new edge of the city cast a perimeter of rubble and desolation, running around the perimeter of a huge chasm into the abyss. The aftershock of the collapse damaged the spires around it, the falling towers glimmered across the nothingness, some moving to fall after their once certain brethren.

Despite the devastation the City held strong. Moments of palpable silence went by. A short while later the City stopped shaking

The man was stunned, his shock at the scale of it shook his very core. No collapse since he entered the City had been as large as this one, and certainly not this far from the City's boundary. It filled him with fear.

It filled him with dread

He reached down slowly, plucking a piece of broken crystal from the floor, it's cracked and shattered surface became clear and cloudy. Like it had been when the City was born by humanity. The man turned his back to the gaping maw, the canyon ahead was cast with rubble, and like an aged wanderer he took his first steps.

His mind now distraught and mourning his sole inspiration dying on him, his thoughts played out a thousand versions of what was to come.

And each one made him infinitely more terrified…


	2. Heart Beat

Night would never fall in the City's perpetual dawn, yet it didn't stop the man from feeling a darkness fall upon the city. Each shadow seemed that much more black. Each boulevard seemed that much more empty.

His footfalls landed with a clunk akin to metal on stone, the only sound that echoed back at him, like the City didn't want him to feel alone. Everything echoed, his feet, his armour, his heart. The torments of his mind sounded ever louder…

With each footfall the city restored itself, emanating out from his steps, leaving footprints of purity and restoration in the decayed world, akin to a shining light in a world of darkness. Colour returning to a muted sea. The man had been walking for a while, he could have flown, yet for reasons even he couldn't define he had refused it. He walked in the great city, in the ruined City.

Years now he had just walked its streets, flown its spires, explored its depths. He tried his best to watch the falling spires, it was less like the shock of chaotic destruction and more like watching a friend die in front of him. He knew too well what that was like. It set his heart beating faster in anger and rage, directed at everyone else. It was a fire fuelled by grief, breathing his sorrow, and lit by his bitterness. The world he once knew had been left to rot, yet under his caretaking he could only watch it, and hope that one day life would return to the City.

The man stopped as the shroud of thoughts, each one of the coming cataclysms clouded his mind to the point where he couldn't see anything but ash. His hands raised to his dirty face, the metal gauntlets cold against his skin, he whispered to himself in a gravely tone.

"Get your head together Gale." He muttered firmly. He pressed on his temples expelling the images from his mind. He looked around once more, while the surroundings looked the same, a trained eye could tell that each spire would have once been unique. Now the only true distinction was the collapsed and broken ruins scattered across the causeways that men once walked. A forgotten past, only by those that abandoned it. Gale prayed once again that he could see the city in its prime once more, yet every dream was this desolate land. He held no power alone to repair the city.

It took a moment to feel he wasn't actually alone. He felt a heartbeat in his city beside his own. At first he thought it was nothing more than the City's own will pressing on his mind. He was right, but it wasn't singing secrets of ages past or telling songs of peace and tranquility.

It was an instruction.

He looked up, amongst the varying spires a lone clock tower rose high into the sky, its numerous faces were placed intermittently on its surface, all of them long having stopped, all of them decayed. It took him moments to realise why now of all times he felt that heart beat slowly.

He couldn't tell who they were, they hung there, that's all he knew, and that was enough to fill him with excitement. The figure hung in the sky, clearly a denizen of the city, they wore the same plated flight suit that he did, its glow a brilliant and vibrant green, each plate coloured like dark marble, albeit from this distance, Gale couldn't make out more than basic distinctions.

"Hello there!" He shouted, his voice echoed loudly. The figure's head snapped around. On sight they took a guarded stance. Backing away in the air as if he were a monster. Gale jumped into the air, however before he could approach she was gone. Pulling a board from her waist and riding it like a skateboard upon the sky further into the city.

Gale could only smile, someone else in the city of dreams, someone who believed. He felt at ease knowing it, even as his body began to feel distant and the familiar press of his bed against his back. His last moments that night were to land and with his eyes closed, for the first time in years, he peacefully drifted off into the world awaiting for him.

* * *

Sometimes it felt like the real world was the dream. Gale clenched his fist slowly, gripping onto the bed covers, as if to confirm his return. His eyes opened, one first then the other, his gaze falling upon his stained ceiling. He blinked a few times, squinting in the dazzling sunlight.

It wasn't an alarm that woke him, rather the hubbub from the street below. He recognised every sound, and he didn't want to.

He spat the stub of last night's cigarette from his mouth, and painfully swung his legs around. He pulled himself to his feet, the sprinkled ash fell off him. As he stumbled to the window his hand rested against his chest. He could barely feel the beating of his heart, it ran quiet and slow. Parting the curtains slowly he saw the hideous car parked on the street below.

"Ah… Shit." He muttered in frustration, he heard its owner bang against his front door. Growling in frustration, Gale stumbled his way to it, tripping over the scattered belongings across his bedroom, piles of clothes and boxes invaded the corridor linking his flat together. Cigarette ash had long stained the blue carpet grey, pitting it with burn marks. Mold had taken over everywhere else.

The locks clanked heavily as Gale pulled off the massive aftermarket deadbolt, heaving the door open like it were a bank vault, its hinges squealing until it locked on its chain. He bitterly hated the man's smile beyond it.

"Hey Dad." His son said to his father's frowning face. Gale only grunted as he removed the chain and opened the door.

"Get inside Alban, you'll let the heat out." Gale growled in response. As his son made his way inside Gale plucked an old, half finished cigarette from a shelf and didn't hesitate to spark it.

Alban slowly followed his father, he muttered to himself about the state of the flat like he did every time. His eyes fell on the door to Gale's radio room, left slightly ajar. Alban peered into it, trying to yearn its secrets, only to have it slam in his face.

"You know you are not allowed to even peak in there." His father muttered with his cigarette still in his mouth, ash and cinders raining from it. He bolted the door shut and locked it before Alban could complain.

"Dad, I'm twenty seven! I'm allowed to do what I like!" The man responded sharply. His dad whipped around, pointing at him with his cigarette, knocking more ash from its gem.

"In my flat you're still twelve, you will do as I say." He responded loudly. Alban looked taken aback by his father's sudden aggression. Gale turned around, heading into what could be called his living room. By the time his son, a few steps behind, had crossed the threshold he had picked up an open bottle from the coffee table. Yet before he consumed its fiery ambrosia he held a long glance at a picture on his mantelpiece. It was old and darkened, yet its frame and glass was completely immaculate. One would think it had been put there just that morning, maybe even cleaned during those few steps. Its subject had a warming smile, she was beautiful, frozen perfectly in an instant of time. It and a few candles were the only things atop that mantelpiece as if it were an altar. Quite a surprise considering the general clutter and mess filling the man's flat. His gaze did not go unnoticed.

" _ Hey I wasn't expecting you so soon…" _

"I went to see her the other day." His son said, almost mournfully as Gale took a long drink from the bottle, shivers rushed down his body as the liquor burned his throat, he loved it.

"How is she? Are they looking after her?" He asked softly. His son could see a crystal of water in his eye.

"Only because of the money I'm bleeding out for them. You can still work, why don't you help?" Alban said, scolding. "Stops me from having to buy you fags all the time as well!"

His dad stopped for a moment in utter silence. He raised the bottle again. Saying one word before taking another mouthful.

"No."

"No?" Alban scoffed back.

"No." His dad confirmed. Alban sighed heavily.

"You always say that! Why don't you give me a reason for once?" He barked at his father. The man chuckled back.

"You always say that as well." He responded, he slowly took a seat on a worn out armchair. Putting his cigarette out on its wooden armrests. The column of smoke rose gently into the air. "Are we gonna follow the script this time or shall we go addlib?"

"You've been like this since she left, Dad! Can't you see that you drove her away? I won't play this game, you're the one who can't deal with what really happened!" His son burst. Gale's eyes dug deep into his son's own, he knew what he was doing, he knew his way of dressing it up. The young man could feel his stare burning, filled with hatred and loathing, filled with rage. That look, was the one thing he truly feared.

"Just as well I didn't fill the kettle." Gale chuckled, his face slowly turned stern and cold "Leave what you brought me and go." He ordered, gesticulating for him to head to the door.

Alban, outwardly frustrated but inwardly thankful. He reached into the pockets of his business coat, throwing out freshly bought packets of his father's favourite brand onto the table. He dug into his inside pocket, pulling out a fresh bottle of liquor, as something softly thudded on the worn carpet. Stepping forward Alban held the bottle to his Father.

"I got enough, keep it." Gale grumbled, his son only nodded, whipping around in fuming silence he made his way to the door. Gale could hear him set the bottle down on a shelf gently, earning a smile from the man before he slammed the door shut.

Gale got up from where he was sitting, his eyes drawn with curiosity to the object on the floor. He swooped down and picked it up, holding up for him to see. He flipped the orange poker chip around between his fingers with a frown. Gale grumbled to himself as he stumbled back to his chair, dropping into it with a thud. He tossed the chip onto the table without care, letting it clatter against it as he reached for one of the packets. His smile returned as he read the name on it.

"Pall Mall, Lovely." He said cheerfully moments before opening it and sparking one of them up.


	3. Moonlight Rising

The night had long fallen and Gale was yet still awake, he lay flat as a board, his mind wandering in the world between this one and his city. He danced in the twilight world behind his eyelids. He called out to the city with his thoughts. He desperately forced the image of the city in his mind. He'd try to open his eyes and see it...

The image of another. The image of hope.

He sat up for maybe the hundredth time that night, each time it got harder and harder. His vision was shaky, his movements jerky. His brain felt like it was in a storm, either that or a food blender. His hand slammed into the bedside table. He looked at it long and hard, slowly sliding it towards the full glass of whiskey.

"Gently now Gale." he said. He wobbled slightly and his hand swept across the tabletop. He watched the glass of whiskey fly across the room in slow motion, despair in his eyes.

"Shit." he muttered, flopping back onto his bed and reaching towards the floor, he felt the cold glass of a reaching back towards him. He could hear bells jubilantly ringing. All rollers said jackpot. His fist clenched around the bottle's neck.

He let out a long groan.

Half empty… But it'd do.

By the time he'd finished drinking his mind was on the City again. He was getting closer…

Behind his eyelids he kept seeing the shadow of a person flying away into the mist. He swore he'd find them.

He desperately tried to focus on the images of glorious rising towers, of crystal causeways, he wished that image would come true again.

Try as he might he could only ever see the whip of shadow. The trickery of some unseen force in the mists of his mind. The City for the first time was hazy, unfocused. His mind boiled over that one fact, that maybe, man would come back to it.

Some part of him kept saying though that it was just his hope reflecting back from the City. The cynic in him said that it was trying to keep him going, driving him on with the belief of a new dawn: A new age of creation and imagination that would grant him the chance to reach his older years in peace.

That cynic said what everyone else wanted him to think. He said that there was no chance. He said that it's time had come. But he said that every night...

So he listened to what she would've wanted...

He heard a whisper. He kept his eyes closed, so he could only hear it, and not be stuck in the withering reality. He cleared his mind like he had been taught long ago. He focused on the nothing, the void. He let it fill him…

And in that void he could hear The City's faint and distant call reached out for him. He loved that sound, and even years later it never changed... The wind echoing through the spires of dreams, those crafted and gilded by humanity throughout its ages. The gentle howls turned to notes, and each note formed together, they interwoven into song.

He could feel the warmth of the dawn sun glowing across his skin, it made him calm. Its reflections in the tower would refract again and again, shattering down into rays which bounced and weaved like they were alive. They shone through the ruins, they shone with vibrance long missed. It made all of him fall in love once more. Peace and serenity, he felt it all…

And when he listened even harder, and he could hear it:

The sounds of life returning to the City, his one final hope.

With a gentle breeze it found him, and without hesitation it drew him in. He hoped it needed him as much as he needed it. The silence of his room fell away once more, another moment in his whole lifetime. He felt solid ground beneath his feet once again, and he knew what he had to do. He had to find them.

But first he had to know how long he had left...

* * *

Before he had even opened his eyes he'd jumped, spinning in the air as the FlightSuit launched him into the sky. His eyes opened as a spire rushed towards him, only gaining a cocky smirk.

He kicked his legs out, his feet colliding hard against the crystal wall, cracking it outwards from the impact moments before it restored itself. He braced himself like an athlete before bounding up the mile high tower. The soles of his boots glowed with the same light when he was in flight, his every step restored the spire's cracked walls. The glowing armour let out small sparks of blue, like fireflies fading to nothing behind him. A massive crevice was carved into the spire ahead, yet it didn't slow him.

As he reached its edge the aura began to rebuild the former wall. Its sundered parts came to be from trails of whipping dust. It was like a causeway for a magnificent king rushing across a deep ravine. Weaves of gold and rich red channeled across its surface. Like a fragment of an artifact of antiquity it gave a clue as to the tower's former glory.

He felt it began to shake with an almost inevitability as the decay caught up to the restoration he cast upon it. Details faded from it back to dust, colour drained from it. its texture worn away until all that remained was smooth and lifeless. The last cracks sundered his path, severing it from the spire to be claimed by gravity once more.

It didn't stop him, as it decayed behind him into broken pieces and then into incomprehensible debris he still ran. The piece was nothing more than debris now, so it did naught but crumble beneath his feet, he climbed onto its barely definable top, the other side of the crevice above him, a jump from powerful legs enhanced by the City's will sent him to its edge. The force launched the piece downwards in a relentless surge, Gale stretched his arm out as he hit the pinnacle of his jump, his gloved hand gripped onto the ruined crystal, cracking it and sundering it as his fingers dug in.

It was only at times like this he wished his belief didn't heal humanity's dreams, he hung there, being pushed away from the edge as the spire repaired itself, where he once hung on the edge he now gripped into a wall. His hands embedded in what was now an archaic tapestry, looking like threads of woven onyx. Men looked down on their gods, and his hand was firmly between them.

He could feel the spire pushing him out like a splinter from a wound. Hurriedly he dug his other hand in, fighting away the power generated from his own being to clamber up onto the wall once more.

Ahead of him was a stretch that lasted until the sundered peak of the once proud spire many dozens of meters ahead of him. With further determination he sprinted, locking out the sounds and feelings around him, even the feeling of another watching him. He bound up the wall rapidly, gaining more and more momentum as his back plates glowed even brighter. With a powerful jump he arched away from the spire, flinging himself over its broken top into the air only to be caught by his FlightSuit before he could fall to the causeways below.

He now flew over the tops of many spires, and below the midpoint of many others. The City's glorious skyline expanded around him. Towers and spires rose as one high into the sky, each one unique in form and scale. Their tips gleamed as they caught the light and their being shimmered with every colour conceivable. From this height the ruins had an air of wonder and beauty, unmatchable albeit to the city in its prime, yet like an enormous geode it still shone. Circling their bases, and occasionally higher than that, snaked the lines of causeways that expanded out from a heart far far away like a spiderweb between each spire. Viaducts and tiers sprung up here and there like an architectural fantasy. It was that heart he set himself upon.

He flew forward at a speed that would've been impossible on Earth, but in dreams it didn't matter. In the City the only thing that bothered him was the roar of the wind, and he had a solution for that.

A faceplate rose from his chest, unfurling from it like a flowering bud. It wrapped itself around his head, a large green sheet of crystal covered his face, rising out from a single point near his chin to expand into two points near his temples. It moved as he did, like it was a part of him, fluid as if it were scales on a mythical creature. As he looked down at the city up to the fog bound edges that encircled it, a dawning sun at its edge, his new helmet moved with silent mechanisms with him.

Gale increased his speed no longer feeling barred by the air whipping at his face, he made his way to the City's heart. Despite the rush of the moment, after a fair while he grew tedious of the constant flying, he aimed downwards slightly. Within moments, he began jetting between the spires, through their ruin he halted for nothing. He flew through Man's forgotten dreams. Rushing under skyways between towers and through the shattered and splintered remains of once proud spires. He weaved back and forth around them, without a care in the world, he was a man on a mission, but he could at least enjoy it first.

Over time he reached a new district, very different from the characteristic crystal spires, Dozens of large pits scattered across the floor, walled by once shining steel and black marble, now the walls were dented, the pits flooded at their depths with debris and water. Yet their contents were in perfect condition, surrounded by a shroud of fog. He soaked it in, travelling was the only monotonous thing about it.

It was like stepping into the world of the future.

He never knew exactly what they were, or what they were doing. It was as if they were images of the future world. He could remember days long ago he'd sit on their large docks imagining a world where humanity had achieved such creations.

He slowed down slightly, soaking in the various shapes below him, interlaced with one another in an almost honeycomb network scattered spires ran along the edges of the segments. But it was their contents he loved the most, each one was unique: One was shaped like a modern fighter, bristling with what looked like guns; another was huge with a long diamond shaped hull. Many more passed underneath, some were clearly born from the city itself, others from mysteries only time could tell.

He saw an all too familiar vessel parked on one of the rare spires. Unlike the rest he could see it clearly. Its hull was made of solid crystal and stone, a slight blue sheen long covered in cracks and rust. It was more alive than any other. It's brethren slept, whilst this one waited. He gave it a friendly salute and a smile. It seemed to vibrate with glee at his presence.

"I'll see you soon…" He said to his beloved ShardShip. turning his salute into a farewell wave.

His head raised from the vessels of the DreamYard beneath him, gazing out to the even taller towers flanking the horizon ahead of him. Even on the horizon they were enormous. They were separated from the rest of the City by a rich blue ocean running like a massive moat around the City's heart and beyond, it's basin was made of the purest white, clear crystal facets gleaming like sheets of glass. It was kept free from the decay of its world, as if it were merely a dirt it cleaned. The only change it had seen in Gale's life was the forming of huge archipelagos entwining around the remains of many spires, their pinnacles were long sunk and wrecks in its clear pristine depths. Entire districts once wrapping around its shore having long collapsed into the depths of the ocean.

Gale dropped down so he could skim over the ocean's surface, he dropped his hand down, cutting into the water like a blade, kicking up a long trail of white spray as he went. Glancing behind him at the marked route he took, some spires of the City's shoreline still rose shining, tall and magnificent from this distance, just as with the heart, one only learned their true state when they arrived.

After a short while flying faster and faster, Gale flipped himself end for end, his boots glowing once more as he landed on the ocean's surface. He skidded across it as if it were ground, kicking up more of the glistening white spray until the moment he stopped. Rising up from his crouch he stood tall upon its surface. His helmet collapsed into his armour once more, displaying his wide smile for no one to see.

The water's still edge immediately gave way for the rising base of a long fallen spire. Its crystal depths untouched beneath the waterline, perfectly preserved from the ruin that was cast upon it. Gale's eyes ran up the spire's length, it rose from the ground like a tree-trunk cast in cracked crystal and fractured marble, smaller turrets rose from its base before it tapered to the spire's true width. Its design cast a separate beam around it, it spiralled up high to a tapered steeple spanned high into the sky, the only sign of the ever present decay was a small slice off the point high above. Its entirety was gilded with faded mosaics and interweaving threads that had been duplicated by its crafters throughout the inner city.

This spire stood as a vigilant watchtower for the heart of the city, completely independent with a moat of water encircling it. In its prime its peak would gleam like a lighthouse above the water, its rays of light scattering and refracted in every colour. Its beams of lights coming from its source across the scope of the ocean.

These towers held sturdy and resistant to the slow call of time compared to the other districts. This was the one place where no tower had fallen, where the skyways still strung themselves between the buildings, the towers still shone with a vague resemblance to their former brilliance and eldritch mechanisms still turned in their shadows. The spires gleamed white with untouched sinews of black, shining a radiance out of purest majesty, their causeways long quiet, the maze of rooms long forgotten. Although it was as abandoned as the rest of the city, yet Gale never could figure out how it remained in such a comparatively pristine condition. Its spires were cracked, yes, the colorful mosaics long faded, the decay ever present, but they had never been sundered or shattered unlike that of their brethren from across the ocean. They were held high by unseen, unknown forces. It had the feeling that even when the last man stops dreaming of it, This part of the City would stand for all time, and he felt for that reason, it had been where it had begun.

It made him smile every time he saw it, made him pause every time he looked upon the city's crown from a distance. He made way for the water's edge, taking one step forward at a time, the water gently rippling beneath his feet. His footprints on its surface held a lingering glow as one by one they vanished behind him. Even with the relative haste of his mission at hand, he knew this was a journey that would surely take him hours. However it was hours he, for now at least, was willing to spend.


	4. The Final Hours

As the hours rolled by with little sound more than the lapping sea, a tension slowly rose from the sullen depths. It began demanding urgency, a feeling deep down that got the adrenalin slowly flowing through Gale's veins.

He knew he'd be awakening soon no doubt, he'd forgotten the sheer scale of the Inner City, yet he needed to see it. He needed to know. He gripped onto his will in the City with all his strength, even as the real world tried to tug him awake. He had begun his approach to the Inner City's edge. Whilst walking to its very core, he realised it would take days that he didn't have and with his flight suit it could be slightly less, it could take moments another way.

He reached down to his waist, separating a single crystal from his armour. At his touch, like most objects in the City it glowed, then it started to pulse. He began to run, faster and faster. His soles already glowing his heels followed soon after. He braced himself, lowering to a crouch step after step. He peered slowly up the cliff judging its height; it rose from the water in a sheer marble wall interwoven with shining crystal like veins across its surface and scattered with cracks and missing pieces. He drove his legs down. The water's surface splashed and rippled. His arch through the air was perfect.

His feet landing on solid ground once more, and already he was gone. His legs pumped effortlessly as he ran through the City's perimeter. Gale ascended a ramp to a long raised viaduct, its surface long cracked like glass, his every step erasing parts of the web that covered it.

He could hear it whoosh behind him, the growl of air being cut in twain, once more he jumped. The ShardShip came beneath him, between him and the ground, he felt the real world tug harder as he crashed onto its roof. He struggled to his feet against the wind, the hull beneath him faded into veined blue stone. trails of dust and rust drifted into the harsh wind. Its triangular hull was carved like an ice sculpture. Its body was flawless and seamless, adorned with metals and stones of the City's proper. A vehicle born from the city itself.

Gale held the glowing crystal out in a clenched fist, he pointed towards where he wanted to be, every movement of his arm the ShardShip followed, taking him ever deeper into the City's heart.

Spires whipped by with reckless abandon as the ShardShip weaved between the causeways, pillars and towers kicking up dust as it went. Its flight through the city was well-rehearsed, with little to no opposition as it maneuvered around the abandoned boulevards and skyways to its destination.

The real world continued to tug, it continued to distract him. Gale desperately gripped onto the City's call; its spirit and will, desperately, his body trying to wake him, his concentration slipping again and again.

Then one last time…

The ShardShip kicked up chunks of metal and stone as it skidded across the floor, the materials of its essence screamed as it skipped against the City's floor. It landed hard the next time, throwing its rider from its hull as it cracked even more. The ground was gouged by its nose. With a screech it came to a halt just in front of where its rider landed. Gale groaned as he lifted himself up, his body struggled like he was in the real world. The craft rested afore him like an obedient pet. His steps undid the damage it caused albeit briefly, his hand gently rested on the crafts damaged nose.

"Thank you my friend." He spoke gravelly to it, its cracks healing beneath his fingers. He smiled at it as its lights went out, putting the vessel into dormancy. As his palm still rested upon it, his other raised up, pulling the discarded control crystal from the ground into his grasp.

"Just like a Jedi." He muttered with a smile, placing the crystal onto his waist. He recognised where he was in an instant. "Damn, I've good aim. Even when crashing…"

The tower was larger than any other. Its base was akin to roots, spreading up from the open square in which it rested to form rounded ridges that ran its whole length. Towers rose from it like turrets upon a parapet, each one high and thin, almost spindly. Some had fractured off and broken, their debris nowhere in sight. The elegant designs and motifs across its surface had been withered and worn with time, broken in places yet largely whole. Large trapezoid overhangs rose out of its surface, in between the large ridges that ran up its length. Gale began to levitate gently from its base and fly gradually upwards. Past the overhangs, past even more turrets up to a large rim that extended far from its surface. While it looked like the City's King's hall it was far from it, the City of dreams never saw any one person a ruler, it surpassed the rule of man. Rather this tower was special in a way that many people had never truly realised. Only one thing truly gave away this massive tower's true purpose and, only here, high above any other spire could one truly see it

The face upon it was intricate and engineered to a truest perfection, its face was a pearl white and unfathomably flat. Covered with rings and loops of sapphires and emeralds, intricate lines that scattered its surface like a map, in fact most people believed it to be so… Yet ancient runes ran its perimeter, each the size of Gale himself cast as one solid piece akin to shining opals. Large beams extend from off centre. The head of each arm was the scale of the ShardShip that brought him to it. It was no map, it was a massive clock.

Gale could remember the day it began to tick, the day humanity abandoned its home. The day the end times began. It was not just a measure of time...

Gale had long hoped that he'd never see past midnight upon it, and seeing another in his city he'd hoped it would've gone back, but as the minute hand moved once more with a ring of a massive bell his fear and drive were both reignited.

"Five to Midnight…" He whispered, his eyes beginning to close.

"What is it?" He thought he heard someone say as he faded from that world.

His last moments in the city he couldn't tell if it was real or his imagination...

...and he couldn't tell which he would have preferred.

* * *

The night had long fallen into daylight when he woke. Another day of horrible daylight, and sounds of rain lashing at the windows on another wet morning. The sound was surprisingly soothing. Gale swung his legs out of bed with more energy than the nights before.

His hand immediately fell to the glass of liquor on his nightstand, and without even opening his eyes, downed it and lit a fresh cigarette. Gale brought himself to his feet, swaying for a moment before making his way to his kitchen.

"Goddamn booze." He muttered as he stumbled around his flat, he dragged himself along the wall before practically falling through the door to his kitchen. Like everywhere else it was cluttered with items. Many of his visitors often asked why Gale needed a second oven pushed up against a radiator. The man's flat was if anything over equipped, like two people had lived there, and brought everything with them. He swung a cupboard open without care, and he pawed about it for his breakfast.

"Goddamn pancakes." He muttered once more as he found it, with a pained sigh he leaned against the spare oven before tucking in, his eyes locked onto another picture pinned to the wall. It took him a second to realise he hadn't put it there. Gale examined it carefully then felt the need for more alcohol very quickly. His miserable eyes had locked onto the happiness of someone that had long left. He quickly found a near empty bottle of whiskey. Gale desperately drank the memory of that day away. He took another fleeting look at it, His son's idiotic smile drove him from mournful to irate.

Gale blinked and he found himself rummaging about his drawers, pulling out a marker pen and hasilty colouring in his son's face. Smiling at the sight when it was done before he heard more pounding on his front door.

"Goddamn visitors." Gale practically shouted, hurling the now empty bottle against the floor, his frown made its way to his face once more. He stomped his way to the door, practically ripping the chain off as he swung it open.

"Hello Gale how are you today." She said with a smile despite the man's clear irritation, Gale only grunted in response, waving his carer inside. The woman took a lasting glance at the damaged chain lock. "Feeling pretty spry today are we?"

"Happiness won't be welcome in this flat today, Cory." He responded as he stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray. He swung his arm around to scoop up another half empty bottle of whisky from a shelf.

"No problem there, Gale. You're drinking already?" Cory responded with her ever present smile. Gale just grunted as he made his way into his radio room she scooped up the full ashtray and emptied it into his kitchen bin. He heard her gasp loudly at the smashed glass, and after a few minutes of general clean-up she entered the room as well. She made no attempt to ask about the coloured in picture or the broken bottle, she just gazed in wonder around the room.

It always amazed her its contents, she was the only person, aside its owner, to enter it. A privilege bought on by many months just listening to his rambles. Those days however, were now few and far between. She ran her eyes around the shelves, each filled with momentos and pictures each with a happy story. Each with a sad story.

Family heirlooms from ancestors long gone took their place alongside treasures from a fulfilled life, but now each one was covered in thick dust. Many old yet valuable books ran the entire way around the room, waiting to know if they'd ever be read again. Rusted medals and badges hung off an old wonky corkboard. A huge shell casing, often repurposed as a doorstop, stood just in a corner.

She saw Gale at his desk, his radio scanner had been turned on, filling the room with endless static as it scrolled through frequencies endlessly. Gale's focus though was on a large leather bound book. He wrote in it with elegant almost gothic, flowing writing, logging another day in the city of his mind.

"How was it last night?" Cory asked as she sat down on a chair beside him. She furtively brought a notepad from her pocket. Her attempts at stealth were immediately dashed as Gale raised one eyebrow, and glanced her way.

"Same as ever." Gale responded as he placed another cigarette in his mouth, lighting it with an age old zippo that never left its spot on his desk. This room was his throne room of his own kingdom, it kept his greatest treasures.

"I see." Cory responded. "So another day wandering the streets of a long dead city?"

"It's still alive, slightly, the City is not dead yet. I crashed a ShardShip last night. Good thing there's no such thing as insurance." He stated coolly with a hint of humour, he got a chuckle from Cory. Gale ignored her, he still took notes, gently wiping ash from his page. "Other night was different though."

"How so?" She responded eagerly. He looked at her again for a brief moment, his cold grey eyes practically dove straight into hers, she felt like he was analysing her more than she was him. The tables had been turned, but she always felt that with Gale.

"Who do you think it was?" Her head cocked, it was a development indeed.

"Not sure. The City can touch anyone, so could be my neighbour or a lass in a mud hut." He spoke deep in concentration.

"A Lass?"

"Lady, woman, girl, lass, homo sapien of the female variety." He said completely deadpan, still writing. Cory just rolled her eyes. "At least I think she was. She rode a flight board, fairly modern compared to a Shardship, last I rode one I hit a wall at the speed of sound… And that was before I fell off it."

"I see." Cory said once again with a faint smirk, she took down a few notes, flicking back through the pages she scanned one other note in particular.

"Was it Tala?" She asked. Gale froze at the name. His pen stopped mid sentence. Cory could see that small jewel of water in his eyes.

" _ How's your Mum?" _

He didn't look at her, instead at a photograph sitting above his transmitter. Two people, one dressed in an army mess uniform, another in a long white dress that slightly bulged around her midsection. His wedding day, shortly before Alban arrived… Shortly before his boy came into the world.

They both were smiling. Never ending joy and happiness on their faces. The two of them looked like a perfect match and they both wore rings made of crystal. Gale's emotions faded from his face.

"When did all that change?" He asked himself. His voice was soft. He could remember the day they departed, but he would never know the day when the happiness faded away.

The love had never left though...

His hand reached for the empty finger, like he was reaching for her. Cory shuffled in her seat. She knew what would come next. It was by the books with Gale, first came the sadness then came the...

"I shouldn't have asked sor-"

"Don't." He spat very firmly, every syllable came out hard. A very sudden change from moments before. His eyebrows descended, his teeth began to grind. "I do not want sympathy."

...Then came the anger

They were both silent for a moment. Gale finished taking his notes, laying the pen in the spine before slamming the massive book shut. He turned around on his chair, glaring at the woman.

"It was another." He finally said, Cory nodded slowly, writing it down in her notebook. Gale huffed in frustration. "You think it's just in my head don't you? Like every sodding person I've ever told. 'Oh don't listen to Sergeant Mayfair he's nuts.' You're just like them aren't you?"

"I think you are a man cursed with a vivid imagination. A genius maybe, someone who can give reason to something as meaningless as dreams. You give it a form." She responded after a moment. She paused. "But I think we just turned a corner, finally. You dreamt of the city during the war?"

"I didn't go mad because of it. I bloody loved it." Gale's response was a shock to Cory. The way he said it as well, it might've been true but he had really meant to shake her.

"Gale that's not true now is it." Cory finally interjected. She never dared interrupt him before, and she could see how well it had gone down. "I think you are a man with a lot of potential for greatness."

"How old are you Cory?" He asked sharply, he felt like her compliments were attacking him.

"Twenty two." She said patiently. "Same as I was when you last asked me."

"Then why don't you remember it? Why can't you remember the City?" He asked aggressively, he gesticulated with his hand firmly. "Towers miles high, glistening in an eternal dawn, its edges wrapped in a thick fog and the space between each spire bridged and wound with thousands of crystal causeways. Why can't you remember the sight of every man, woman, and child's dreams reaching high into the sky?"

"You have always described the City as being covered in decay and ruin?" She asked, looking away briefly. She avoided his question very well. The man scoffed, he turned to his notebook, sealing it with a hefty padlock.

"That was after you abandoned it."

"Me?"

"Everyone!" The man bellowed, Cory leaned back in shock. "When you started using apps and games and tubes of you and filling your life with meaningless crap you all destroyed your potential, to live in the now rather than work for the future! You destroyed every person's ability to aspire to pure greatness and go above and beyond what we thought possible.  _ That _ is why you left the city, you all took the easy route!

"In my day we landed on the bloody moon, what have you achieved? You landed a new friend on twitter-gram or whatever for uploading a picture of your ass! Big bloody woop! Top marks, here's your bloody knighthood!"

Cory remained calm even as her patient got more and more irate. She made a note in her book before closing it. She glanced to her right, seeing an unopened bottle of medication on the desk, exactly where she left it last time. She let out a sigh.

"I'm not going to prescribe you anything more than you have, I would suggest you ease up off the drink and cut back on the cigarettes, you're ruining yourself." She spoke softly. "But I say that all the time." she said too quietly for him to hear.

"Tala already did that." He whispered more or less to himself. Cory added one last note onto her pad.

"Maybe you shouldn't obsess yourself over this, Gale. Since it happened you've buried yourself in this City of yours, when did you last go outside?" She said warmly, only earning a snort from him.

"What's there outside that could possibly interest me?" He spoke bluntly. Pointing his thumb at the heavy shutters over the windows.

"I feel you're avoiding the subject." Cory responded. "I think next time I am here we should get you outside for a bit."

"Only place of worth is the City." The man grunted.

"If it's dying you should let it. Dream about Tala, she made you happy."

" _ I'm not…" _

"It's my duty as the last denizen of the City to ensure Humanity's return to the City, it's the only way we can all be saved." He spoke his mission like he had so many times.

"You are definitely obsessed." She didn't mean for him to take her words like he did, nor did she mean to say it how it came out. He pointed to the door, his other hand continued to work his craft on the radio's controls.

"Your time is up, your next patient awaits you. Take care Ma'am." Gale said very calmly without even turning to face her. Cory nodded and stood up, she rested a hand on his shoulder before she left as he readied his microphone.

"I'm only here to help you, Mr Mayfair." She spoke warmly, he didn't respond as she turned away, closing the door to the radio room as she went.

Her words still echoed in Gale's mind. Words that were cast by people who dared not want to remember. He could tell that about Corona as soon as he met her. Even if she didn't want to say he was right, he believed she knew he was. He never doubted his mission.

Why else would she try and help him love this world when everyone else wants him to admit he's mad?

Gale glanced at the door, letting out a deep breath he flicked his transmitter on, running through the well-rehearsed routine of radio checks. He engaged his microphone, his headphones donned and activated. Without another moment of hesitation he began broadcasting in earnest. With a deep breath he began to speak.

"Do you remember it? There was a time we all did…"

* * *


	5. One to Another

Gale's eyes opened to the City around him. He took a moment to glance around as he continued to hover. His eyes panned slowly across the still remarkable architecture. Even in their state of decay, they still held an elegance unrivalled and unmatched Setting himself down slowly and gently he thought back to the counting clock. Its hands counting time longer than a minute, longer than an hour. He didn't know its timescale, he could only guess they had maybe weeks left. The City knew its time was coming.

Gale let out a depressive sigh, as the city around him rumbled with another distant collapse far away from him. He made his way with heavy feet to the still crashed ShardShip, he touched the nose of the ship gently, running his fingers over it once more. Like a brush he painted its original condition upon its ruin, the decay came back slower than it had done before.

"You wait all day?" His voice boomed loudly at the person leaning on the crenelations of a causeway above him. They looked down to him.

"No, For me it turned to night hours ago." They responded, Gale's vague assessment was right, definitely female. She pushed herself off into the air. "Is it safe to approach it?"

Gale pointed at the crashed ShardShip, he noticed the person nod.

"Yeah, nothing here can really harm you. Welcome to the City" He responded. "Or what's left of it."

Eagerly she jumped to the cracked and now ruined floor, Gale was happy to see she had the same effect upon their world as he did, if not more.

Finally, someone believed.

As they walked towards him the decay waned from a much greater distance than it did for him. It even brought back the faintest brushes of colour, and as their auras combined, the ground returned to a near pristine state. She passed a large square patch cut into the floor, filled with scattered grey stones. Yet at her approach each one turned black as onyx, metal rods began to rise, turning to branches and steadily growing into a metal tree the height of Gale himself, capped with a chunk of white opal on the end of each branch.

"Are you real?" She asked tentatively.

"As real as the bed you fell asleep in, but this is a dream." He frowned at himself. "So technically both… I think"

As they closed Gale noticed they wore a similar, albeit a different variant of the FlightSuit to him, whilst his was covered in panels closer to armour, theirs was coated in long threads of stone, more akin to a stone trench coat. No doubt only carrying the parts that would be required, making it lightweight to fit better onto the person's stocky frame. The stone was the same black whilst the plates were adorned with silver filigree, a design that continued up her helmet around to a blue visor shaped like a downwards pointing arrow.

Gale let them approach, he leaned on the ShardShip as it shifted on the floor. The gouge it cut into it repaired beneath it. They stood in front of him, Gale noticed they were about his shoulder height.

"You going to remove your helmet?" He asked pointing. The person just nodded. A moment passed before it unfurled from their head, laying itself against their chest plate.

Gale took a moment to understand the person in front of him. Her face had very sharp, almost sculpted features. She looked young. Her eyes a brilliant green, a faint scar cut through one of her eyebrows, her eyes looked reserved and withdrawn even though she had a mischievous smirk on her face. Her ebony hair fell down to her shoulders. The two were silently studying each other.

"Didn't expect to see someone else here. This place is empty." She finally spoke with a slight accent. It was clear English wasn't her first language. From his experience he'd guess she had a Scandanavian origin. Her eyes were locked onto his face, Gale could tell she was still studying him.

"Same here, it's been like this for a while." He responded calmly, lacking the hostility he held in the real world. The woman nodded slowly.

"You've been here awhile then?" She asked inquisitively.

"All my life." He paused. "More or less."

"Do you know where we are?" She asked, almost embarrassed. Gale turned his head slightly. He could almost predict her questions.

"Ah... Like I said, this is the City." He stated as his eyes drew thin. "Do you know how you ended up here?"

"I woke here a few weeks ago, after I broke up with my ex…" She paused briefly. Gale could tell it was a wound still raw. "It feels so real though, it doesn't feel like I'm dreaming… It's almost familiar…"

"Do you know why?" He asked, avoiding her original question until he had answers, he was happy to see another, but he felt like she was an intruder.

"No? I think it might be because I locked myself away after she left. I just tried to keep myself distracted…" She said, she raised her hands slightly, struggling for words. "I'm an artist and maybe im here so I can be inspired?" She asked rhetorically.

"That's not it." He stated, with a smile. The woman only frowned.

"How would you know that?" She asked firmly. "Who the bloody hell are you?"

Gale smiled, he took a step back and looked up and down the City's causeway. For a moment. He could hear her impatiently demanding his response.

"My name is Gale Mayfair, I'm like you. Only thing is I never left like you did." He responded cryptically. He could tell she was taking it all in. "Welcome to the City of Dreams, The Great City, Urbe Somnia, Ciudad de los sueños, Asgard… It had so many names…"

"Had? What's it meant to be now?" She asked. "None of this makes sense."

"Now it's only the rotten remains of what it once was. The City draws out the best in all of us, but only to people who will pay the price for it. You must have made the decision to push yourself beyond your means, and by so doing, enabling you to once again travel to this city crafted from the dreams of humanity." He spoke with heavy words. "Though I imagine it was something more than that that brought you here…"

"What you're saying  _ still _ doesn't make sense!" She barked at him, her gauntleted hands rose to her temples in frustration. "Man you're making my brain hurt."

"The City is like a refuge. It nurtured us, it made us better. We are only where we are today because of it and when you were no longer interested in the greatness it could offer you all let go of it you left what remained abandoned and ruined! You abandoned it! And now its in front of you, you still don't believe it!" He started calmly, but his anger got the better of him, like he was in the real world.

He spun around and drove his fist hard into the side of the ShardShip. The crash of the two materials echoed through the city, punctuated by the crash of a distant collapse. With a powerful chime the minute hand high above them moved closer to midnight. Gale rested his hand on the dented hull of his faithful companion. He lashed out at it, it hadn't deserved that. The damage healed beneath his fingers, but the damage would never truly fade...

He looked at the young woman beside him, she only watched him carefully.

"You have no idea how hard I've tried to make people believe in this… and now someone is here you still think this is just a dream! It is so much more than that." He practically cried to the world. Silence echoed around them as the distant rumble of the collapsing tower still made its way through the city.

"Carola Lucian." She said beside him. Gale frowned, not even looking at her.

"What?"

"My name… is Carola Lucian."

"Why are you telling me that?" He asked bluntly.

"Because, Mr Mayfair, you are not alone anymore…" She said with a smile. She stepped away from him, reaching behind her back to pull out her flightboard. "Don't dwell on in anger. Maybe we are here to help each other."

He just watched her as she set the flight board on the ground, it hovered up with a green glow as it powered up. Gale cocked an eyebrow at her.

"What are you doing?" He asked. Carola just pointed at the great clock. Not really helping answer his question.

"I don't want to know how long this place has left…" She responded. Gale didn't know how she had figured it out, but he neither confirmed nor denied it. He smirked at her, tapping on the quiet ShardShip. The large canopy collapsed seamlessly. Carola stepped onto her board as he pulled out the craft's crystal. She gripped her own firmly, her helmet closed gracefully around her face once again.

Within moments Gale was inside and the craft had started to hover, its 'engines' flared with a brilliant blue light. It sung with power unlike any other.

The Rider and Pilot took their own means into the sky. The ShardShip flew alongside the flightboard, and the flightboard alongside it.

"Follow me to the edge of the Ocean." Carola noticeably jolted in surprise as she heard Gale's voice echo inside her helmet.

"I'd like to go my own way for now, Gale." She responded calmly. Gale nodded. She could feel the sadness in his voice of being left to fly the city by himself.

"Find me when you're ready… Thank you." He spoke to her, she gave a quick wave and Gale darted the ShardShip through the arches of a great viaduct, underneath one causeway then over another. Very faintly the blue of the ocean sat like a little smudge at the end of a canyon of spires.

He was thankful not to be alone anymore. He smiled as he made way to his destination. Looking back, he could see the trail of the flightboard go into the deeper parts of the City. Gale let out a long breath. Not of relief but of sadness.

Gale mulled over the events in such depth he didn't even notice the time going by. He flew the canyons on autopilot with such skill the shardship moved more akin to a bird than a construct helmed by an earth-bound being.

With his eyes growing heavier, Gale inverted the vessel, with precise eyes he scanned the ground. He lazily pointed the crystal at a patch clear of debris, and with practice and precision the Shardship touched down without a sound. The canopy came open, and as Gale climbed out and sat on the crystal wing he could immediately feel the pull of the real world.

It had been waiting for the best parts to be over…

* * *


	6. Damning Redemption

He awoke to the silence of the world falling as white noise upon his ears. It echoed around him, his every action, it spurred it. He hated it. He could feel a sense in his body that didn't belong, he exiled it by drinking straight from another open bottle on his bedside.

The burning liquid ignited his throat, destroying and scorching anything that remained of sobriety. Gale took a deep breath. His eyes locked onto the other side of the room meaninglessly. His heart burned quietly.

It took him a while to realise the lack of light pouring in. His clock's hands were suspended way before his normal waking hours. Realisation hit him shortly after, an early awakening.

Try as he might Gale could not force the City to come back to him. He fell into a frustrated silence, punctuated by the repeated grunts as he desperately tossed and turned trying to find a place of rest. He sat up on his bed growling with insurmountable rage. He scrambled to his feet, a cigarette already clenched between his teeth and a bottle in his hand, he stumbled to his radio room.

Gale banged the door open, he tripped and trod to his seat, falling down into it with a silent thud. His large notebook sat in front of him, its cover had long deteriorated as had the city he once knew. It seemed almost an upsetting coincidence that the journal that housed his dreams would have decayed just like they had. However whilst he could repair his tales of the City, and often had, it was a damning irony he could seldom achieve such comparable feats in the City itself.

Especially these days.

He pawed quietly at the lock, eventually managing to turn its key with a shaky hand. That same hand ran over the leather cover, the metal bolted to its surface had long rusted, yet it still held some of its marvellous brilliance. Nostalgia filled him as he turned the pages to once in particular, dated six years ago.

Yet even as he read his transcripts the words just couldn't form. his mind blocked them, the image they conveyed was muted. He could remain there for ours, trying to relive it. Yet when his day to day kicked in it was clear as glass.

It haunted him…

" _ You need to wake up." _

The last of the page was smudged by water drops and liquor stains. He dared not read it. He didn't need to. Again it haunted him.

He stumbled up from the chair, scooping up the bottle as he went. It took a lot of effort for him to even make it to the door. He made desperately for the cluttered living room, he tried to reach his stereo. Gale's mind was fogged. Not just by the alcohol but thousands of unwanted thoughts plagued him. He would blink and see his wedding, he'd blink again and see his son for the first time.

"Not a chance." He spat to himself, stopping in his tracks. He upended the bottle, chugging the liquor like it was orange juice. His throat screamed, his body burned. He felt a brief, yet unwanted relief as it ran out of the intoxicant. "Oh for god's sake." He growled, turning and hurling the bottle at his front door.

"Bloody Empty!" Gale shouted after it, he wobbled on his feet as he tried to stop his motion, it didn't work.

He screamed in pain as he landed. His joints cracked and popped. The radiator was far from forgiving.

His screams turned to roars of rage as he cradled his head. He beat against the floor, he hurled fists at an invisible assailant. He tried to breath but the air choked him.

"Let me go!" He roared, his body screamed at him. His eyes burned as they watered. His vision turned clouded. His mind was broken again. The pain was as fresh as the day it came. "Bring me back! Tala! Wake Up!"

He could feel his mind letting go of his body. He couldn't control it. The pull of the City was more sheer this time. Less a gentle whisper on a breeze and more like the pull of a hurricane. He blinked a few times, trying to clear the tears from them…

But it wasnt enough.

His mind held on, half in one world, half in another. Like hanging over a cliff he couldn't let go of.

He rolled to his side. His hands grasped for purchase upon the cold metal, He kneeled now, his head resting upon it without feeling. His body still screamed. This damn world wouldn't let him go.

So he forced it.

The sound echoed, but that was all that betrayed his actions. He couldn't feel it, not the pain that should've lingered, nor the impact of his skull upon the bare metal. The onslaught weakened the world's grip, until eventually he only felt it yield.

With a deep breath, sleep claimed him again.

* * *

It was a strange change. As he felt his body in the city again he felt the alcohol drain away. His mind was clear, his movements were precise, instead of loose. Gale could breath. The air was fresh. It felt more real than anywhere else. It was pure. He opened his eyes to the world. The clearing he had landed in was in fact a huge junction of skyways. He leaned forward, peering over the Shardship's bow, he could see the distant causeways far below him. He gently stroked the hull of the Shardship. his hands undoing a decay that had set in whilst he briefly waked, The ship's skin beneath his fingers began to ebb like it was alive.

He flicked his hand forwards and the armoured gloves retracted. He lay flesh to stone for the first time in ages, letting the soothing sensation of the ship flood him. He closed his eyes, remembering.

He wanted to stay there, just reminiscing about the times he spent in the City, but instead he clicked his fingers.

With that one click the memories faded, his mind changed from wanting to relive memories to wanting to make new ones. He held his breath and jumped from the Shardship, landing with gentle feet.

He let out that same breath, the broken surface of the skyway repaired beneath him. He chuckled briefly.

"Ah. Finally one you can still walk on." He said with a smile, he jovially jogged forward and booted a broken fragment into the sky. His aim nowadays though was not as good as he thought it was. "Gale, you never learn…"

It clinked off of a distant part of the Skyway, mostly harmless.

Yet it sent the entire section ahead of him crashing to the ground. He knelt, pressing his hand hard against his section and closing his eyes as the expanding crack ran up to him. He believed…

He wished…

He believed hard, he believed in it harder than he thought he could.

He prayed to the city.

As the crack reached the junction it was intercepted by his belief in the City. The restoration expanded across its surface, his belief enhanced it, bringing it to long before the decay, but before it was abandoned. The cracks filled in, the new surface flowed like water outwards only to freeze into ribbons of crystal. Etchings and engravings spread like rot across the new skin of the skyway, another snippet of times past, passed into the dying now. The crashing skyway nearly broke through into the pure crystal. Its force was too great…

But the City had its own to rival it. In that one moment the crossroads ignited like a fountain of light, stained with every colour it erupted from deep below its foundations. Within moments the skyway had begun to pulse like a bridge of rainbows, it pulsed in all directions, igniting a wave of coloured light that began to snake its way around the decrepid spires, stretching far into the City's depths.

The light halted the collapse, it denied it, it tamed it, and at its sundered edge the light bled from it, catching itself upon motes of dust every colour. The wind caught the display of life and drifted it like a cloud of hope across the city. Colour in a world of grey.

Gale waited until the sounds of crashing and cracking had stopped. His body was tense. He was ready to spring.

He relaxed as the world turned silent once more.

The sad fact was, that the moment he began to relax once again, the moment his concentration shifted, the incredible display of light that once occupied the City vanished, turning back to the cold clear crystal that made up this long forgotten world. He saw the decay creep in again. Rust flowed towards him, cracks spread once more, but its majesty was unseen. The junction was safe, but its display of life had gone. All that marked its presence was the gentle wisps of clear crystal that filled the air, the engravings ablated away quicker than dry sand in the wind. They hung free in the breeze, no longer bound but they too had died. The world was hollow and nearly lifeless once again.

He got to his feet, walking forward towards the new edge. The causeway beneath was devastated. The skyway's descent had ripped it apart. Shards of its structure scattered between the spires, another area turned to solely ruin and wreckage.

He felt guilty. Incredibly guilty. He hung his head in shame, turning around, he picked a direction and went, leaving the shardship where it sat. He placed its crystal on his hip as he went by, running his hands over its surface.

It was a while before another thought entered his head. His route was snaking toward a large spire. It stood out from the rest in its district. Not just in its sheer size but its shape. It was as if someone had taken it from the Heart of the City and placed it there. He traced the horizon with his eyes, the Heart itself wasn't that far away, but its gargantuan spires had gradually shortened long ago. Something was odd about this one.

Gale laid his fingers on his temples, looking back through his memories to see if it had always been here; Thinking hard it had. The City couldn't grow anymore, It had to have always been there, so obvious it didn't stand out. He remembered it once shone with beams of light, Each one stretched for an eternity into the deep fog, like beacons to what lay beyond. Looking up those lights had long gone out.

He continued towards the spire, curiosity filled him. Its facade was broken like every other spire, but some parts remained. The large gateway's frame was made of solid black marble, shaped like eight threads spun loosely around a larger one, eight steeples sat like a crown, even the structure itself was like a twisted rope, rising around a large central core. It held a sort of power over everything, not one of creation like the City's heart or the ocean far away giving life to the City. It seemed more like the bridge that spanned into the perpetual fog, it was something important. Yet never spoken of. Never used, but always needed.

Gale stepped through its gateway. He frowned briefly. backpedaling and looking down he saw something intriguing. From where he was he could see no other entrance. He engaged his flight suit. The shoulders glowed as he began to gently hover. He gracefully flew around the spire, the journey was huge. Its surface was fraught with gashes and rends, rooms of unknown nature or purpose could be seen inside. The only true way in was via the skyway.

He flew back through the threshold, landing softly. There was just this one large room, a few clear doorways sat inset in the walls. Its gates lay across the floor, long fallen and having long devastated anything in their path and scattering debris across the floor. Their surface carried on the spiraling rope pattern from outside, like it was meant to blend in. The remains of several huge deadbolts lay around the threshold.

This place was never meant to be entered, and it was truly unnerving.

The room was silent. No gentle call of wind, no sounds of distant rumbling. Gale stopped moving when he noticed he couldn't even hear his footsteps.

He lightly kicked a fragment...Nothing.

He tried to shout… Nothing.

It made him distressed. This was very new. He felt the human instincts warn him. Not that it mattered to him. He just smiled, laughing silently he jogged eagerly towards a doorway. Like each door in the City, it looked like a sheet of near perfectly clear glass. Like many others though, the glass was cracked, making the fissure appear to float.

He stepped through it, the glass didn't resist, it didn't break. It flowed around him like a pristine liquid until he was completely through, sealing into a single sheet once more behind him. He pushed away the faint feeling of nausea from it, continuing to jog through the damaged corridor. As he went he gently brushed the fronts of his shoulders, letting them glow bright and act like inbuilt torches, igniting the corridor for him to see.

The corridor twisted around and around. He couldn't tell if it was going up or down. but what he did know was eventually the ruin began to end. The walls were pristine, the floor was undamaged, the halls were lit once more.

Soon after Gale found himself at another doorway, and inside he found what the tower was built for. The room beyond was round, There were eight doorways, each leading to what seemed like mirrors, but up close, they were filled with the grey fog that bordered the City only many magnitudes brighter. A border of what seemed like fire surrounded a fuzzy reflection of his room, giving the effect the mysterious fog itself was on fire. The City never ceased to amaze though.

He had no reflection, but someone else did. He turned around and sure enough, he was alone in the room. He turned back and they were looking straight at him. He felt excitement at seeing yet another in the City, yet it began to occur to him she wasn't really there. She came up to the mirror, looking behind her just as he did. He could just about make out some of her features, short blue hair, glasses, quite thin, she seemed to have a lightweight flightsuit. Her eyes were sad. He pointed at himself. She did the same.

He reached forward, his hand passed through the mirror like the City's own doorways, yet as his fingers entered the threshold all he could feel was cold. He pulled his hand back sharply, gasping silently in both surprise and shock. Frost covered his fingers. He touched them and he could feel the sheer cold. He desperately tried to warm his hand up. He took one last glance at the mirror, the woman was gone.

He'd spend the next few hours trying to figure out what the room was. The eerie, unnatural silence constantly invaded his mind. He'd noticed above each doorway was a different symbol, and not a shred of similarity between them. The rooms center had an empty pedestal, marked by the symbol he always recognised as that of the City. The room was like a meeting place, for those people very different from one another, a terminus almost. He couldn't gleen much else. The City held many mysteries, many that no one was meant to understand. He sat on the pedestal for a short while, contemplating the room's past.

He had a moment of curiosity as two doorways faded into nothing. The images inside them vanished, only to be replaced by a faint flash of light and nothing else.

Gale's curiosity turned to one of concern. A sound finally punctured the silence. A distant rumble. An unearthly rumble. Something on a scale unimaginable. It seemed like it came through the empty doorways as they were shattered apart, as well as beyond the City itself.

The rumble sounded like ethereal thunder, never had there been a sound like it in the City. This was no collapsing tower or district...

This was no crashing shardship or shardcraft…

It was a sound never heard by Man.

He ran desperately through the spire, he charged up the corridor as the thunder erupted again, so loud he could feel it pulsing the air. He slammed through the glass doorway and through into the large atrium. Gale could feel the whole City shake underfoot He charged to the gateway and was immediately stopped in his tracks.

Through the huge doorway was something he'd never seen. Something filled him with awe. It hung in the fog far far away, it glowed, it moved, it ebbed. Shimmering like fire in the sky yet on a scale so awesome. It was like two burning eclipses, two burning eyes. Something far away igniting and dying in a cataclysm that made him scared, and would anyone who else saw it. The eyes started to collapse, the fog wall billowed like it was being drawn in towards two areas, dare he say, everything seemed to be pulled towards it.

The wind started to shift, it too began to roar straight towards it. The hearts of this cataclysm pulled closer to one another, whipping up chaos and damnation between them. As they merged it sounded like the world itself had begun to crack. Gale heard the sounds of more shattering behind him, he dared not take his eyes off this thing, for a moment he wondered if this had been what the clock was counting to…

Was this the end of the city?

Or was it just the beginning of it?

In the far distance he could just about see the City's great bridge. it stretched and flexed, it was holding fast though, the City was still fighting to survive.

The singularities merged to a single point, a collision that seemed to be on a truly cosmic scale.

As the turmoil brought hellfire onto his Fallen City, Gale pressed as hard as he could into his temples. The rippling inferno in the sky continued to grow.

He was scared.

He wanted to wake…

He'd only once else wanted to wake before.

The roaring wind whipped the loose debris from the Spires, pulling the scattered dust and shards towards it, creating a large cloud of debris over the city. Fragments whizzed by. Whipping past like needles in the air…

Carnage.

He tried to wake...

With one last clap the singularity vanished, Gale shielded his eyes as the light seared his eyes. Were he awake he would've been blinded. It was brighter than every sun, and each supernova they would birth. There was no shadow, there was no shade. In one moment the entire City was alight, the deepest chambers lit up. Light refracted a million times, creating a shadow of rainbow light behind the construct into the nothingness it claimed kingdom.

The City, for one lingering moment shone brighter and brighter than any star, drowning out its own.

Slowly the light began to fade and the air came still. Gale was able to look upon it. The site was amazing. It was like an aurora, emanating from the former singularity, it shimmered with a golden ring, alive, it cried a beautiful sorrow, its power made the City almost sing in a mourning tribute. The halo met the horizon, and the aurora began to envelope the city. A searing fog rushed across it, the airborne debris ignited into shooting stars.

Gale instinctively engaged his helmet as it met him. He kneeled in the torrent of fire as it raged around him, he watched as the skyway crumbled in front of him, its debris flayed against the spire. The ShardShip was plucked off the ground spiraling into the City' depths. He could feel the heat, it was so strong. with a gentle whisper it tempered, calming as the aurora passed by into the nothingness beyond. The City was finally still once final time, alight once again under its own sun…

The clock tower tolled again...

...And Gale couldn't help but think though that somewhere, something massive had died.

* * *

"No he is breathing... I don't know, I've just got here... Yeah third floor, you should have his details on the system, it's not the first time. Stupid man would be pissed at his own funeral." He heard a distant voice. They echoed, they were all around him. and he desperately wished they would quieten down a bit. "He's waking up hold on, Dad?"

"Who let you in?" Gale spat, he tried to lift himself from the floor, his legs fought him, his head was on fire.

"Dad you shouldn't get up." Alban stated firmly. Gale could just about hear someone chattering on the phone.

"My flat, remember. Help me up." He insisted, getting himself to a sitting position. His head screamed at him.

"No Dad I won't." His son insisted, standing up and stepping back. His father glared at him, standing up slowly. He knew he was at the point of no return. "Stay down."

"How dare you." He sneered, he struggled to his feet, his mind still disoriented, he clenched his fist, his knuckles went bright white. He swiped a near empty bottle from the radiator, he took a hasty and hefty gulp. "How. Dare. You."

"No, he's on his feet... And pretty angry. Please can you-" Alban began, he was caught completely by surprise as his phone was smacked from his hand. He stared at his Dad shocked. There was no anger, no rage, just shock.

"After everything I've done for you! I had to give up my career so I could walk you to school! All the times I helped you at university, the meetings I was in! How people looked down at me at times for my 'parenting' and  _ this _ is how you thank me!" He spat each word like venom, the force of each one wobbled him. He didn't even know why he was angry.

"Dad calm down, let's get you a cigarette and sit down, shall we?" Alban said with his hands out, he kept an open stance. Despite his condition his Dad was still a weapon. The man finished the bottle. He was drunk again already.

"I don't want to sit down! I want you to look at me! Look at me and see me!" He started to choke on his words. "I just want you to believe me! Believe me Alban! If you won't, who will!" He pleaded. Tears ran down his face. Alban couldn't believe it.

"This again Dad?" He said frustrated, he saw the sadness turn to rage on his father's face. "Do you really think it's worthwhile ruining what's left of your life so you can keep trying to save your fictitious fantasy?"

His dad was silent for a moment, and that made Alban more worried than anything else. The tears had suddenly stopped. There was no other feelings there but that blind hatred, aimed at anything that moved.

"Maybe you're right…" Gale had his voice very low, almost a whispering growl. His eyes could shatter solid rock. "But maybe you're wrong… Eitherway, do you really think that would stop me?"

Alban raised his hands in surrender, the action made Gale snort. "Maybe one more story won't hurt?"

"Goddamn coward, such a disappointment." Gale muttered his words, but still made sure he was loud enough to be heard. He raised his voice again, spitting his next ones like venom. "One more story as opposed to none at all? That's the way you'd like it isn't it? Get me locked up so you don't have me bleeding your millions deep pockets dry."

Gale stormed off to his armchair. He plopped down in silence, lighting a cigarette and draping his old jacket over his shoulders.

Alban quietly picked up his phone again. He turned away from his Dad.

"Hello?" He hoped that the operator was still on the line.

"Hello Mr Mayfair, I've diverted a police car to you, I heard shouting is everything ok?" The operator sounded relieved.

"Yeah, everythings fine. There's no need for an ambulance or a police car now, he's awake and seems fine."

"Mr Mayfair I would not recommend it, there could be serious damage-"

"If they come, they won't be let in. Man survived being left in the Falklands, I'm sure he'll survive a concussion, Corona will be by in half an hour anyway, she'll check him over. Thank You." He spoke each word with insistence, hanging up the call. He quickly texted Cory, begging her to come quick.

"You never did like it when things don't go your way." His Dad said chuckling. Alban turned around and immediately put his head in his hands. Gale already had another drink.

"Really? You've had what half a bottle already. Dad? You nearly died, can you…" He said. His face lit up for a moment, he could feel his dad staring at him. "Tell you what if you put the glass down I'll let you tell me about the City.

"It's only a little glass." Gale said, he slowly brought the glass slowly to his mouth, teasing his son like a schoolboy.

"Dad, you could keep fish in that." Alban ran his hands down his face. His father had a faint smirk on his face. He begged. "Please?"

Gale cocked an eyebrow at his son, and gestured for him to take a stool. Leaning forward he poured his whiskey back into its bottle and dropped the glass onto the floor beside him. He smirked slightly as Alban took the bottle away, placing it on a box beside him.

"Im ready." Alban said with a smile. He liked the way his Dad spoke of the City.

"You're sat like you were when you were twelve." His Dad said with a smile. His mood had completely changed, again.

"Well like you said I still am." He thought for a moment. "Tell me of when you first saw the City."

"How am I supposed to remember that?" Gale grumbled. He fiddled with a lighter. He almost seemed nervous.

"When the roads were the colour of rainbows. The buildings ignited in the light…"

"...and the City was alive." Gale continued, lighting his cigarette. He could see it coming back to him, until the smoke hit his lungs, then he wretched.

"It was beautiful. More beautiful than anything I've ever seen. Apart from your mother." Gale began after a minute. He Glanced at the picture once again.

" _ Tala is everything ok?" _

Thoughts came back but he pushed them away. He wished desperately he still had his whiskey. "I was scared at first. We were on a patrol and I woke up clad from the shoulders down in armour. I thought I'd died. Everything felt so real. The wind on my face, the sounds of hustle beyond. It was confusing. I felt lost. Never had I felt something so real. I went outside and I saw it. It shimmered, it glowed. The floor beneath me pulsed with lights of all colours of the rainbow and the spires caught the dawn light and sang with luminescence. People walked the skyways, flew between the spires, or did whatever the hell they wanted… Didn't matter your creed or race, I'd fight the same bastards I dreamt of the night before. They were all equals there, never would you see someone hurt, never would you see someone bullied. We were all on this adventure together. I took to the sky, and I could see the City radiate with light, it seemed endless, it just simply was… and always was…"

Gale's eyes glazed over for a brief moment.

"It was wondrous, it was illuminated with every shape and colour you could conceive. Try and picture that sight, and it still isn't good enough. I don't think there is a word in our language for something so… pure.

"It still is, now it's just a shadow of its former self. It's still beautiful. But I haven't seen it truly radiate in years. It can come back to its old self, it's not too late. Things are happening in the City now that have never happened before. There is a chance, every chance we can bring humanity back to the City."

"Who's we?" Alban asked. He pointed at both of them. "Not 'us' we?"

"Not you. Why would I want you?" Gale spat, his words never ceased to strike his son hard. "There's another there now. She believes in the City. I can tell, she'd want to see it in light again. At Least I hope so. There is something about the City that brings out the best in people."

"That's very interesting." His son whispered, he tried to sound sarcastic. A jab back at his Dad, but it was far from it. He didn't seem to notice though, he didn't even seem to realise he had spoken. This wasn't the ramblings of a mad man. Alban could tell that every word he'd had said he'd believed...

"When you enter the City you are at peace, nothing else matters. In that world you are free. Truly free. There are no nations, no wars, no conflict, you are free. And I have another visitor." He stated. Alban looked confused. He stared out the window, at the door. There was no one. Moments later the front door creaked open.

"How the hell can you do that?" Alban asked, he waved his hand, dismissing the idea. He got to his feet, placing a few packets of cigarettes on the table, and some money on the fireplace. He created the new arrival. "Corona."

"Hey Gale!" She said happily. Gale placed his hand to his head, she was too loud. "Hey Al, how is he?

Gale looked up in surprise, he looked at his son. "Al?" He mouthed. his confusion was ignored.

"He's had a fall in the night. Overdrinking." He explained. "...Again." Corona nodded.

"Have you checked for potential concussion?"

"No, he doesn't seem any more delirious than normal. Wasn't going to stop him sleeping all day anyway."

"I can hear you two y'know." He said angrily, Gale had picked up his glass again. He pointed with it, the hatred had returned to his eyes. "You. 'Al'."

"Yes Dad?" Alban said, he rolled his eyes and he could hear what was coming.

"Grab my mail." He said. His son put his coat on.

"You don't have any mail. Anything else?"

"Yeah." Gale said, he took a massive mouthful. "Sod off."

"Yes sir, anything you say sir. I'll polish my boots sir, I promise. Please put the cane down-" His Son began mockingly, he stopped as his Dad rose to his feet, darting to the door with his tail between his legs. "Seeya later Corona, if he does end up on the floor again, just leave him. I've got people to sack."

Without another word Alban left. Gale's eyes followed him out the door. He growled to himself, sitting back down heavily, he lit another cigarette within moments.

"You two have another spat?" Corona asked as she started picking up rubbish, it would take months to clean this place, without Gale being there anyway. "I thought I was hearing friendly voices!"

"I don't really give two tosses Cory, so there is no point making conversation out of it." He said, pouring another glass.

"That's not true. He does love you, really he does, and you should too." She said with a smile, the man's glare had no effect on her. "He's your son, he's your blood."

"Should have worn a jacket." He said with a smile, he was about to take another drink when he burst into sudden laughter. Cory watched in shock. He coughed violently. "She said that as well."

"Don't be so crude, Gale. You're far better than that." She spoke with a frown. "I don't think Tala would approve of your methods…" Cory felt a pang of sadness as that jewel of water reserved just for her appeared in his eyes. She pulled out her pad, taking down a brief note.

" _ I'm not there yet." _

"What's the term for a person like me?" He asked, he puffed heavily on his cigarette.

Corona rose to her feet without a word. She could feel Gale staring at her. She picked up the pile of money and smiled at him, she got the faintest of smiles back. "I'll be back with your shopping."

"That's what I thought…" He whispered as she walked away. He dried his cheek, and put on his usual frown. Any semblance of emotion other than anger left his visage. Inwardly he was betrayed. He whispered to himself. "I do love him, when he's not a twat."

He was alone again, and moments after that he was on his feet again, he gingerly walked through his flat. Gale grunted as he forced the deadbolt open, and with a powerful shove the door creaked open to his radio room. He dropped into his chair.

Gale was hit by a sharp stab of pain in his back. He breathed deep, spots appeared in his vision as the pain rapidly turned to agony. He tried desperately to control it. He calmed his breaths to no avail, he desperately forced his thumb between his knuckles, attempting in vain to distract the pain.

It took mouthfuls and mouthfuls of alcohol to cause the pain to subside slightly. When the time came that he was able to see properly he reached for his pen. Despite the breathtaking agony, he opened the book, and proceeded to write down the events of the night. He set aside a space, enabling him to sketch with great accuracy the event in the sky, and briefly, the person in the mirror. Even drunk, the man was a wizard with a pen.

He flicked on his radio set as he carried on writing. He swapped over settings and worked the controls on autopilot. He only paused to swap his hands over, but he didn't even miss a beat as he did so. His hand still wrote, his other still worked.

Gale let out a deep breath as he set his pen down, scanning his notes, he held certain ones in memory.

Something clicked in his mind. An idea. Something that would need to be tested, when the time was right.

He donned his headset, and glanced at the clock. Without being even a second later, he started his broadcast as he always did, when he always did.

"Do you remember it?"

* * *


	7. Call to Innocence

Gale's eyes opened to the skyline of the City. Never did it cease to inspire, never did it cease to amaze. Even though he'd seen it all before, that very same day even, it's like it was being seen anew again. The City seemed to glisten today. It always did but today it was like it really shone, layers of settled dust had been blasted away. The boulevards, causeways and skywalks, at least those that remained, had been wiped near clean of debris.

But the aftershock had clearly hit the City as well. He noticed the skyline had changed: Spires had fallen; a district had collapsed far away from here; and fresh new crevices had formed down the twisting boulevards.

What glorious ruin...

Today wasn't a day to explore though. Today was a time to work towards his mission. His mind wandered over several theories. Many of them were already fruitless, and some, less so…

He needed something further reaching than a radio, convincing people was one thing, proving it was the hard part...

Gale walked as far into the room as he could, his mind continued to wonder. He took one last look around it, he looked for a hint. Something, anything. There was no such thing as coincidence.

He thought back over the day before. Somehow, almost without meaning to, he found himself downstairs again. He stared at the empty doorways, his mind trying to unravel its secrets in its silence. His eyes lingered on the two shattered doorways. The dividing wall between the two had been destroyed. Cracks larger than his fist had ripped into the walls. He felt around its internals, there was nothing to give away what it really was. It was maddening.

Gale looked back into the doorway that he saw the woman in. There was no sign anything had changed there. The burning fog rippled far brighter than before and blew in an invisible wind.

He just stared at the doorway. Its silent song spilled an eternity of myths and fuelled more ideas across his mind. It gave life to an almost tranquil grace, triggering a never ending desire to step inside it. He looked down, one foot had already stepped towards it. He had to focus, he had to think hard. He focused on a small pebble near his feet.

He admired its edges, as the neverending fire tried to pull him in.

It took every thought to repel it.

He drove his backfoot forward. His armoured boot sent the stone into the doorway, taking the unknown will with it. He watched as it passed effortlessly into that world, hanging in the air for moments just beyond the aperture. Its surfaces instantly froze. Its colours bcame muted. Dust blew from its surface, like the fire's same wind blew over it...

Or like something was shredding it...

It hazed over, as if having passed through another aperture on the other side. He watched it skip across the ground. It stood out too well. It didn't belong.

And then Gale had the idea…

His mind drifted across the room. He'd never noticed but its roof high above spelled it out plain and simple. It didn't confirm his thought, but it gave it the chance he wanted.

But it spelled out something many times more terrifying...

He ran. Gale just ran, he nimbly navigated the corridors, running from something, a monster almost. Like everything had become a monster. The sense of unease finally reached boiling point.

Something was very wrong with this place, and had been every moment he was in that spire. He had reached the atrium. The crystal spires of the City sang a song he could not hear. He was desperate for them, he moved as deep into the atrium as he could. Now would be his moment.

The wanderer braced with all his might, in one moment his body coiled up like a spring and when he felt he couldn't hold it any more, he exploded forward like a bullet from a gun.

He ran. He ran hard, and he ran fast. Setting a pace he had not reached in years. He felt flashes of memories coming back to him. Yet he pushed the sounds of thunder and the sickening screams from his mind. He placed his hand on the crystal at his hip, donning his gauntlets as he did so. He could see the ShardShip launch below him. It dove into the air, banking around a nearby spire to come towards him.

He leapt onto the edge of the broken skyway, and leapt further into nothing. He kicked his legs out, falling with his arms behind him, his boots primed, braced for landing at any moment.

With planned precision he landed hard on the Shardship's wing. The force knocked the craft into a barrel roll, not that it mattered. Gale stood up against the forces on his body. The world spun around him, giving him nothing more than a headache. He walked confidently towards the open canopy, taking his place at the helm once more. At that point he calmed. He gazed over the City. Its song sang in his head once more.

He was coming home.

His true home.

The ship's crystal in his hand, he guided the vessel between spires, darting over causeways and threading the needle through aqueducts. Eventually the constant changing course grew tiresome, Gale punched his fist into the air, causing the craft to pull sharply upwards, near instantly in fact. It took little more than a few seconds for the Shardship to pass the highest spires around him, the beacon spire sat definitely on the horizon at this point.

The spires rapidly began to thin out, forming large flat areas of polished stone that reflected the sky itself. Gale pulled the shardship close to the surface once more, its mirrored twin banked and rolled as it did. A few moments later they blasted over the edge of the mirrored stone, casting themselves over the ocean once again like a greyhound out of a truck. They had met the course set nights ago...

The ShardShip skimmed the surface of the ocean once more, its Jetstream glazed the water's surface with white foam, as the City's heart fell away far behind him. Its distant crown ever present on the horizon, rising high and setting itself apart from the rest of the City's Spires, it eclipsed the dawning sun, each one glistened like diamonds. The ocean was clear beneath him, dying itself a light blue at only its deepest fathoms, even then the glass ocean bed shone its rays of light throughout its depths. Gale took in none of this though, instead focusing on the island ahead of him.

It was one of the few plants that grew in the City, it was less of an island more of a colossal tree, it grew out of the ocean's deepest point, rising up high, its roots arched up and penetrated the water's surface like a great willow, the trunk of the tree was as thick as the pinnacles of any spire, it rose up to the height as well. Despite the decayed land around it, the tree in its entirety was truly healthy, its branches were bare of leaves, however tipped with small black marble ovoids. its roots were covered in thick blankets of metal moss, each and every surface was engraved with tapestries of many a bygone age. This tree had always held reverence.

The ShardShip took a minute to circle it, coming down into a far more gentle descent compared to its last outing. The crystalline vessel touched down on a clear, worked patch of flat wood, hewn from the flesh of the tree itself.

Like all loners Gale had built himself a small paradise, the ShardShip turned dormant once more, with its pilot leaping from its cockpit it seemed to take a breath of air as he did. The man walked steadily over the weaving roots, hoping between gaps between them up to a small stone structure resembling an ancient watchtower mixed with an archaic temple. He let out that same breath. The air was cool.

Whilst the site had once been a shrine, Gale had claimed it as a respite from endlessly walking the ruins of his once great City, headquarters almost for his expeditions into the abyss. As he stood at the base of the World Tree once more he felt in his heart his mission was once again making progress.

Although at that moment he could hear the distant ring of a bell far far away.

Gale stepped through the door less threshold, like always he checked over his surroundings. Despite the city being vacant of life aside from him, until now anyway, he still checked it over. With a smile that it was all right he rested both his hands on his opposite shoulders, signalling to the FlightSuit to disengage.

The panels clicked outwards, circling around his torso and limbs until they all stacked neatly behind his body, like a shadow of himself cast upon the air itself. The suit's base layer deformed around him, withdrawing under the plates like it was being sucked into them. Gale stepped away from the deactivated flight suit, running his hand over the creases of his olive green shirt underneath. He tucked its base into his camouflage trousers as he stepped off into his domain. He ran his hands down the stone wall, its cracked surface faded into its carved facade of white brickwork, the seams between them were set with ebony black crystal.

His trinkets were all covered in some kind of decay, much like his own flat. He walked to the centre of the shrine, placing his hand upon the floor. He focused hard again, he could hear the faint clinking of crystal as each of his possessions repaired themselves, at least to an extent. He gazed over each one. The best times of his life were held in this room. He was happy, truly he was home.

Yet he felt the nightmare of the real world tug on his mind, with almost sadness he couldn't fight it. He wanted desperately to hold on, to stay where he truly loved. Almost the cruelty of life to take him from that world as he got home.

But take him, it did.

Gale began to wake.

* * *

He awoke once again to the world he hated. He closed his fists like he wanted to rip it all apart. His eyes sealed shut like he didn't want to believe it. He tried desperately to flush it away, to keep the grip on his City.

He shed a tear as his eyes opened. The City was gone, his dreams faded too nothing but a memory.

Like so many things to become just a memory.

He rose from his bed, groping desperately for his packet of cigarettes. He felt his head in a haze. Almost lovingly he lit it, puffing away peacefully like a content steam train as some of the haze faded.

He reached for his dirtied glass and drank, and the rest of his haze faded.

It was only then Gale remembered his name, it was only then that he remembered where he was, yet he could never remember his own face.

He climbed to his feet, wobbling slightly as he did so. He carefully shuffled his way to his radio room. Even with pangs of hunger he wrote his notes faithfully. A routine that could never be broken. He scanned the radio waves patiently.

Still there was nothing, the world was silent…

But deaf people often were...

He laid his pen down carefully, as if it were glass. Shortly after he shuffled out the room once more, whiskey and cigarette still in hand, he began the difficult mission of getting to his kitchen without falling over

"Why the hell did that silly child get me pancakes?" He grumbled as he searched his cupboards. Things clattered as he went, some pounding as they fell out. Gale just swung the door shut and grumbled, his voice turning to a low growl. "Why not porridge. I like porridge... Or a brick?"

The buzz of the real world was already digging in at him.

Gale tore the pack of pancakes from the cupboard, he looked at them with fury so hot he could toast them. He blinked and once more in a fit of rage his mind had enacted is righteous victory.

With a dull thud they landed on the black Mercedes parked below, and with a much louder thud the window slammed shut again. That was plenty enough outside for one day.

Stubbing his cigarette out on his worktop he reached to the top of the cupboard, pulling down a packet of very old cereal. He nearly pulled the drawer off as he opened it, its contents clattered painfully. The noises just got louder each time.

With well trained hands he picked up a knife. He twirled it in his fingers like he was at a show. In a single swipe the cereal box's top came off, and in a continuing motion the knife was back in its exact place once more. Gale's frown deepened briefly. It didn't look right.

He turned the blade over so its edge faced away from him, and with a brief smirk he contently slammed the drawer back shut. Not long later he had everything he required. Discarded pieces of cereal scattered the worktop, its box discarded carelessly to one side.

Gale broke convention, pouring nothing but whiskey on his breakfast. His mind desperately tried to drown out the sounds of the world around him, but thankfully he didn't have to, his mind was distracted by a pounding on his front door. He just carried on, praying they'd leave him alone.

They kept on...

knock knock.

Gale hoped it was a delivery man, he desperately hoped the invader would leave his kingdom be…

They didn't.

"Why in the name of hell do people insist on visiting?" He growled, working through his breakfast, he stomped his way to the door. He very nearly shut it back in their face before hello's were even said.

"Hey dad." Alban said, wincing as he caught the door. "Put some shoes on."

"You come here and insist on things like that? Who do you think you are?" Gale growled at him aggressively. Alban didn't back down.

"I'm your son, you haven't been out in weeks, and Corona is going to meet us in the park." Gale groaned as soon as he started talking. Earning a sarcastic smile from his son. "Don't be a child."

Gale's face contorted into one of anger, anyone else would think he was going to enter a full rage.

"Don't. Bait. Me. Alban." He sneered, punctuating every single word with a threatening gesture from his shaking spoon. He turned away, leaving his son at the door.

"For Mum." His son insisted. He saw his father stop in his tracks. "I'm not asking you to go for a run, just sit on a bench in the park with me."

" _ What do you mean?" _

"Anyone else." His words had cut into Alban very deep.

"Well, like I said, Corona wants to see you as well." His father growled once more. Alban thought he wasn't going to come as he disappeared into the living room, only to come back with his old leather jacket slung over his shoulders. He looked younger with it on, despite its evident neglect and worn look. It finished his dads look perfectly. "Change your shirt."

"Stick it up your ass." He grunted. He vanished into the kitchen.

"God damnit Dad, what is it now!" Alban snapped, being careful not to shout too loud. He didn't want to wake the neighbours by another one of his dad's temper tantrums.

"Can I atleast bring my breakfast? Or is that not allowed?" Gale snarked as he emerged from the room with his bowl, he was still shoveling the contents down, flicking his shoulders and pulling his sleeves between spoonfuls. Alban just turned his nose up at it on sight.

"What on earth is it?" He asked. He tried to figure it out. Then he remembered who he was asking.

"Famous Grouse and Bran Flakes." They said together, in unison. Alban snatched the bowl, quickly. Thankfully, Gale was too distracted by his now ill fitting jacket to stop him.

"How about no." Alban said quite pointedly, he loved the moment of rebellion, although he knew he'd get it later.

Gale set the door's deadbolt shortly before slamming it shut even more enraged than before. He didn't wait for his son as he stomped down the stairs out to the outer world. "Not for long."

"Just a quick trip to the park dad, Dad. Not to worry though, I've got food in my car if you're still hungry..." He said, throwing the bowl into the communal bins, he held the door open for his old man, watching him flinch and hiss at the sunlight. He just waited for his opportune moment…

"...It's your bloody pancakes."


	8. Sounds of Earth

The sounds of the wind in the trees, the lap of waves upon the lake…

The call of birds overhead and the honks of ducks on the water…

The chatter of families around, and the playing of children in the grass…

…And the roar of distant engines, the crunch of gravel underfoot. It all fell on deaf ears.

The two men sat in absolute silence, while Alban took in the park around him, remembering it from his childhood. Gale just sat there. His stance was open, inviting, yet he ignored it all. It all fell on ears that didn't want, nor care to hear them. The palette of colours was akin to a rainbow painted on the landscape, yet to him it was all grey. There was nothing of any interest anywhere in sight. It was Worthless.

It was Hopeless.

The only thing that filled him with gratitude was the air. It was crisp, it was fresh. So filled with life and promise, it flowed through him and around him. It tugged on him like the real world was trying to draw him in. Yet his mind was already there.

He didn't day dream, he took it all in. All of it. Yet still it meant nothing

Alban stretched beside him. Giving out a long yawn.

"Sorry, was a long day yesterday. R&D is trying to get an energetic research site up and running up north…" Alban trailed off, realising his Dad wasn't interested. "You're quiet, you ok Dad?" He asked as he still stretched. His father grunted. "Not enjoying yourself?"

"Why would I? It's meaningless." His voice was gravelly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. "All of it."

Alban tried to have a look of surprise on his face as he watched his father light his cigarette, giving it a few gentle puffs.

"What do you mean?" He asked, Gale took the cigarette in between his fingers. "The fresh air, the birds in the trees? The colour? Don't you appreciate any of it?" He asked, gesticulating to the world around them.

"It means nothing to me, absolutely nothing." He responded, his voice cold, distant, and uncaring. Alban caught sight of Corona approaching from up the path. "What made you think I would enjoy this?"

"Because you're always inside." Alban responded immediately, but he then realised he didn't think his answer through.

"Why do you think that is?" The young man was left wordless as Corona came up to them.

"How are we doing today?" She asked, earning a grunt from Gale, and a speechless look from Alban. The man shook his head and got up off the bench.

"This is a waste of time, I should have been at a major meeting today. A battle and a half to get him out here, and what's it all worth." Alban spoke as if his father wasn't even there. Gale raised an eyebrow as the conversation carried on seemingly, once again, unaware of its subject's presence. "This all might as well not exist to him."

"We got him outside, that's a step in the right direction." Corona argued, Alban just shook his head.

"He doesn't care about himself, why would he care about those who love him?" Alban insisted, he shook his head, he pretended to check the time quickly, hiding his face. "I need to go, businesses don't run themselves. I cant keep helping him, It's bad enough I see him so often when he doesn't give a shit."

Alban swiftly donned a set of sunglasses. Not even saying goodbye as he left.

Corona watched the man walk away. His feet kicked up stones, his fists buried deep in his pockets. She rubbed her arms, suddenly feeling watched, then she noticed Gale looking at her rather than him.

"You make my job difficult, Gale." She said softly, sitting down beside him, she turned her body towards him. "You're going to push him away."

"Good." He responded.

"Don't say that you don't mean it." She said to him firmly. "It's one thing him hearing his dad loves him, but seeing is believing, Gale. He needs to see that love from you."

"He doesn't have time for me. Why should I give a shit?" He responded sharply.

"Because you don't give him time, Gale." Corona took a deep breath. "And technically he does come over whenever he can, to see you. You know the Mayfair Corporation isn't based here anymore don't you?"

Gale looked at Cory confused. He couldn't work it out. He couldn't work out why. She might have well spoken to him in Italian

"He always comes, sometimes hours out of his way to see you. Sometimes it takes him the whole day just to pop in to give you your drink and cigarettes. You're his father, and he's your son. You've been through a lot and you need each other. Show him some love, and he will too."

"How the hell would you know that?" He growled, his eyes grew fierce and dark... Like they were compensating.

"Because he told me so, and your reaction tells me you already know that." She stood up slowly, and held her hand out to him. "Let's get you home."

The walk back was definitely a scenic one, but it didn't matter. The marketplace hustled with a bustling crowd. It seemed fluid and organic. Like a well rehearsed dance. Yet it didn't matter, Gale shut it all out. More so than normal. His mind mulled over many things. time travelled very quickly.

The best thing he'd seen all morning was his front door. Gale fumbled with his keys. It felt like hours he was standing there. He frowned at each one. They all looked so unfamiliar. Someone had been playing with him surely. Someone had to have been.

"You swap my keys?" Gale's voice was low. His voice was threatening.

"No. They're your keys." Cory replied. She had a concerned look.

"Has Alban swapped my keys?"

"Gale, these are your keys." She held her hand out, she tried to smile at the man, remind him she was a friend. "Can I try?"

He didn't give her a yes or a no. He just froze. Gale wanted to snap at her, wanted to tell her he was able, he could do it. Yet his heart cried, and it never stopped. She gently removed them from his hand. Immediately she was able to open the door.

Realisation hit him like a steam train, and that same realisation hit Cory as well.

"You haven't opened your door in a long time have you, Gale?" She asked softly. She could tell he was already feeling tired, for someone who does very little, anything can be alot. His strong walk was gone. He shuffled back into his flat. Cory put the keys back where they belonged. The hook had a rusted groove where they were always hung.

She found him in the radio room. He had sat down, his expression contorted in confusion. He looked ever so slightly lost. Cory plucked the case of meds from his desk, giving them a quick once over she held them out to him.

"I don't prescribe meds as a hobby, Gale. I gave you these to stop moments like this." She waited. It felt like a very long time. His eyes were empty.

He finally nodded. A slow one, barely noticeable. It was a twitch more than anything. Cory pressed them into his hand and rested her hand on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze and whispering a heartfelt goodbye.

Gale waited a minute. As the silence permeated the room only underlined by the faintest rumbles outside he came back to his senses. He let go of the meds, letting them drop to the floor and roll away somewhere.

Gale cursed himself. He let the anger take over. The frustration at life. The fury at the people around him. They were all lying to him, they had to be. About him as well! Swapping things over, how could they? How dare they invade his life every day, trying to stop him believing. How could they lie about the City to his face? How dare they.

He had let his frustration boil over as he began transmitting, he just let it fade away into nothing, it could have been done by a vicar to a silent congregation. Gale had felt the pull of the City even when he was transmitting. A long day for someone who does nothing is to do something. He could barely finish his transmission.

"You… You must return." He said, struggling. He took a deep breath. "Return to the City."

Gale really struggled shutting everything down. The order of operation was still clear in his mind like he was reading it straight from the manual, but his movements were slow. His actions sluggish, and it felt like doing a deadlift just raising his arms.

He could feel the solid floor beneath him even when he was stumbling to his room, the carpet at his feet gave at the gentle thud of boots on stone. He felt his body roar with pain as he crashed onto his bed. It was a pain that paralyzed. Never had he felt anything like it before. Gale let out held gasps and pained whines like an injured animal. His breath was short. His vision filled with black spots...

He panted as sleep claimed him.

He didn't go willingly this time...

* * *

He could feel the City around him, although at a distance, its ebbing call was drowned out by the song of the World Tree around him. In its notes he felt the gentle touch of peace. His pain began to fade, his breaths began to deepen. Although his heart still raced away, he smiled once more and opened his eyes once again.

This was his real home.

The single room was filled with memorabilia from his time in the city. From pictures of former inhabitants long parted, to shards of crystal of various purposes. He placed his fingers gently on one of the photos and at his touch the glass became clear, the picture gained its colour again, and the memories of that time returned to him. The crystal frame sparkled like a single piece of diamond. Its luster and brilliance scattered any light it caught, its surface was smooth and refined yet well worn. The man in it held a smile that screamed of happiness, the woman locked in his arms equally so…

And after a few minutes he found that surprisingly he did too. For a moment he was that man again, for a moment he could feel the excitement he felt. His blood pumped with his enthusiasm… His heart fluttered at his joy.

He thought he could feel… Her…

Yet the moment he reached for her she was gone again, and that man faded again into the recesses of memory. The smile faded, the excitement dwindled, the joy turned to misery and the enthusiasm became tedious.

"Tala…" He whispered sadly.

" _ Gale, help me." _

He felt the usual pit in his heart reform. Slowly he plucked a pebble like stone from beside the photo, throwing it onto the ground. With a flash of brilliant light, it shattered into a dozen pieces. Each particle took a piece of that light with it as they floated back upwards. They hung in the air from the floor to just short of his eye level, and amongst the cloud she came.

"Hello Gale." A voice spoke as the image of Tala appeared before him, coming to a whole from the glowing motes of dust. Her, long, dark brown hair flowed in an invisible breeze like water, random braids whipped like rope. Her face was thin, but still young, brilliant amber eyes locked straight into his. The image reached up and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Gale smiled back at her.

"Hello Angel. It's been a long time." He said as he leaned back against the room's wall. Her eyes followed his.

"You're looking well." She spoke, looking him up and down. Gale chuckled, he gave himself a look up and down. "Abit bedraggled but still good. You need to cut your hair, or atleast comb it."

"You say that every time." He said back practically laughing at this point. "I've got good news."

"I hope you have been keeping well, I really do. It has been far too long." She spoke almost on autopilot. To an outsider she was ignoring him. "But I hope you still understand why, has anything happened? Is Alban ok?"

"It's been two weeks, and Alban's still a brat with a god complex." A hint of sadness was in his voice, he craved for here to hear him. "Can I tell you the news?"

"I see, tell him, his Mother loves him, and to take care of you. I know what you can be like." Tala spoke almost from a script. "Don't think I don't love you, It's not that reason I'm gone Gale, I just… It never was quite home."

"There's another here, someone has returned to the City." He practically pleaded for her to respond to it. Tala smiled, but Gale knew it wasn't about that. "I'm so close."

"I have no regret's Gale. I never wish away what we had, no matter how hard it got and I hope we can have far more in the future. You were brilliant, and Alban deserves you. You're a better parent than I ever was." She said, she tried to keep that smile on her face the whole time. She had to try even harder to stop her eyes watering. It was a struggle Gale felt aswell.

"Don't say that. Ever." Gale said quite firmly, it wasn't how he'd scold Alban, it wasn't the way he'd say it at all. It was the way he used to…

Tala looked around, as if she was seeing a sight only she could see.

"It'll be nice if we could see this place how it was one day, we could find ourselves all here. A paradise of our own. Maybe… maybe this was what we were missing in the end." She whispered those last words. She didn't realise the camera had heard it.

"Gale I want you to be strong, don't ever stop-"

"I love you." Gale spoke over her, he held his hand out, the lights faded and the shards flew towards his hand, forming back into the pebble mid flight. They plopped softly into his hand as one entity. He thumbed its surface gently, he had not wished to hear what was next. His eyes took in its surface, it felt like he was still looking at her. his eyes prickled slightly. "Why didn't you wake up?"

"Am I intruding?" Carola asked from the threshold. Her hand rested on the doorway gently whilst her other gripped her flightboard.

"No… Not in any way." Gale responded with a feigned smile, he placed the stone in its place on the shelf. He turned to her, it was hard to discern what was on her mind.

"What was that yesterday?" She asked, pointing out at what looked like a distant golden nebula dominating the sky…

The headstone of something beyond conceiving…

"I don't know." Gale said simply. He turned the stone over in his hands.

"It's not happened before?" She asked. Gale had to think for a moment.

"Never. Not as far as I know. There was never anything like that on any tapestries or carvings. Its new." He moved to get a better look through one of the stone windows.. The nebula was flowing and undulating, like an aurora. Even now it still moved, it continued to blow against the city very gently. It added its song to the City's own. Its chords were alien, its sounded ethereal. "I don't think it will harm us. It probably did some damage, well a lot."

"What do you mean damage?" Carola asked, looking a bit concerned now. Gale Leaned on the stone windowframe. He could feel its surface beneath his skin, nice and cold.

"As in damage, Y'know damage?" He mimed something breaking apart. "Smashed, broken, people screaming? Damage."

"I'm not an idiot Gale." Carola said in a very monotone voice, she was not amused. "Get to the point."

"Whatever it was doesn't really matter at this point, neither does it matter why. We can spend all our nights pondering what it was. However, I'm worried about the City itself, not what's in it. Don't matter how strong your walls are if your foundation's shit, if you know what I mean."

"You think this is what's going to end all this?"

"Certainly hasn't done it any good. We need this place, more than ever." Gal looked at the distant skyline. "I mean look what we can build. Look what we have built before the modern age came about. And I don't just mean in here. Look at the wonders of the ancient world. The marvels of the industrial revolution. People dreamed, and they made wonderous things all because of this. What do we have nowadays? Nothing even worth mentioning."

Carola looked at him, for a moment he seemed older, a lot older. There was wisdom in his words, like he had experienced some of those marvel's first hand.

"You really believe that dont you?" She asked. Gale only nodded, remaining silent. Even he didn't know the thoughts that rushed through his mind. Like threads of twine unraveling and intertwining one by one. Something was coming to fruition

Carola continued to watch him. Gale's eyes had narrowed, his fingers were drawing strange symbols on the window frame. He continued on like that for quite a while, completely unaware she was still there. Eventually he stopped, but just kept looking out at the vast skyline. It was like he was waiting…

For something.

"What is this place?" She finally asked, Gale noticed she still hadn't fully entered, even after all this time.

"This is my home, here anyway. Closest to a proper home I've had in years." He responded simply. He noticed her quirk an eyebrow. "It used to be a shrine."

"To what?" She asked, gesturing if she could come in. Gale gave a quick nod.

"Life." He answered as she entered, she leaned her flightboard against the wall quietly. "It's the one thing we all have in common… That we are alive… And that we're human, but that would be boring and graphic. Why celebrate differences that some people can't fathom when we can celebrate what we all have in common."

Carola nodded slowly. They were silent for a while, Gale felt the need to address the elephant in the room.

"Why'd you find me?" He asked. It wasn't like he minded.

"It's a vast empty City, stuff like this can make anyone feel uneasy." She responded. Gale chuckled before she could continue, earning a faint scowl. "Only so many times you can find another abandoned room in another abandoned tower before you wonder whether there was a reason people felt the need to leave, or if it was too beautiful for people to stay…"

"The City never wanted to harm anyone." He said, he sat on a carved root of the World Tree. The carved wood was comfier than any seat in the real world. "You shoulda' seen it in its prime!" He laughed. Her eyebrow quirked at him again. Gale's face turned serious once more. "Would you like to see it?"

Carola only nodded, Gale silently raised his hand. With just the slightest of thoughts another stone flew from the shelf, this one far more worn, the only item still cast in the decay even after landing in his palm. Wear and tear could not be undone. Just like the previous stone he cast it on the floor.

The image it produced was far clearer than the one that showed Tala. Like the camera was on the wings of a bird it flew through a city adorned with spires so pure and untouched, their surfaces were an almost dazzling array of colours. Each tower was perfect in form. They all glowed with a graceful light, scattering their radiance from one to the next, they all worked together for the better whole. The skyways and causeways cast between them danced with all the colours imaginable, like they contained rainbows that flowed from building to building, running through the causeways that glistened like diamonds. Layers and layers of intricacies and details would appear and fade into one another as the camera made its way through the city. Banners of unique patterns and symbols hung almost sprinkled across the cityscape. Metal arches rose, flanking the many clean streets, Shardships skimmed the pathways between them, moving like cars across the land.

Countless black dots moved around the city, flying between the spires, walking the causeways, even riding flightboards or ShardShips. They met with one another, they huddled together, they passed each other. There was no hostility, there was no ignorance. Everyone moved with purpose, and they welcomed those that did too.

The camera swooped in, flying between the arches of viaducts, weaving around the causeways, down boulevards of clear carved crystal racing the flowing spectrums of light. Facets covered all the floors like paving tiles, glimmering and glistening like a giant geode, their surfaces were engraved with beautiful images and moments caught from time. People walked upon the memories of their ancestors. The flowing light made them seem to live and animate.

Causeways rose up from the City's boulevard of giants and rose high, clinging upon the walls of the great canyons. They too were gilded with patterns and providence, and seemed too to live, snaking their way between the spires like they had purpose. They shone with a vibrance unparalleled as they were gifted by the City's own light. Skyways spanned even higher above, hanging delicately between each spire, they hung almost on the air itself. Occasional columns rose from below, pulsating with the City's light to let it flow high above. Monuments rose to become like great obelisks along the causeways and skyways. Each varied in colours across the spectrum, each capped with a glowing crystal that flared brightly like living fire, scattered more light throughout the city.

The light, and the colours it brought, moved and traversed the surfaces of the towers like it was alive...

Trees grown from marble or metal rose and grew with budding flowers that twinkled in the dawning light. People waved at them as they flew by, adorned in FlightSuits or regular clothes of all designs and colours, ranging from smart suits to elegant kimonos and decorated burkas. The City was filled with a world's worth of culture and people.

Suddenly the camera tilted upwards towards the dawn sky, its hues were magnitudes more vivid...

It rushed past skyways and causeways, flashing past overhangs and turrets leaning from the spires. It rose into the highest reaches, the tips of a thousand steeples fell away. The view tilted down to an expansive City, far larger present, glistening in the sunlight, stretching to the fogbound horizon in one direction, and to the great ocean in the other and beyond. The City's heart sat ever proud, ever glowing, rising like a crown upon this palace, only dwarfed by a massive mountain beyond, untouched by the City scape, it rose like a dormant monolith hewn from solid crystal. Massive shardcraft of stone and crystal rose from the DreamYard on the ocean's shore, flying amongst their brethren around the City…

And far in the distance, across the ocean a tall tower of light rose. It shone like a beacon from the distant world tree. Its flowers and leaves scattered the light from the sun, catching it and lifting it high into the sky, deep into the roofs of the fog high above. They twinkled like a thousand gems, and through its roots, they fed the City with every colour imaginable.

In the distance eight beams of lesser light pulsed across the City, high above each and every spire. They delved deep into the fogbank, marking the way for all to find the City. In the deepest depths they found something.

Flashes of light echoed far across the ocean, the Heart's vanguard tower led the way across the ocean for everyone.

The display of true life and grace caught their breaths. Something was glorious about this place, seeing it made the knowledge of the City's decay even sadder. The colours had been muted. The light had faded to darkness. The towers had fallen, skyways collapsed…

The districts had gone, the trees had died, even the mountain had fallen into the abyss below.

The City of today was now near death...

The image faded from around them.

Gale stood up. His mind had continued to wonder.

"You see what I mean?" He said with sorrow rich in his voice.

"Yeah. I do now." Carola said meekly, her eyes were glazed over, she had been put under a spell and she too felt that same sorrow he did, she felt the anger as well. It was fury. Who could let something like this die?

Who would dare to betray our guiding hand?

Then she answered her own question.

_ We all could… _

Gale reached his arm out, twisting his hand around anticlockwise as he did so. The image reappeared, backtracking through a time long past. He had seen something.

Gale stopped turning his hand.

He had a theory… Now he needed evidence.

He looked at his companion here in the City. He didn't know if he could trust her with the theories he had unravelling in his mind. He didn't know if she could make the hard decisions when the time came, or if she even truly felt the City was worth saving.

But she had believed in it, she had returned to it when no one else did. Carola had shown an interest in the City, and now she had shown mourning for its dying state.

He didn't trust her…

But he had to try...

Gale reached for the stone, it called forth its component parts as he plucked it carefully from the air. It was a memory, it was a record of what once was. It was valuable beyond anything. He held it out to the young woman. Her eye still glazed over from the experience.

"Why are you giving it to me?" She eventually asked, finally noticing the world around her again.

"Because most of my life that was the City I dreamt of…" He spoke warmly, almost at peace. She reached her hand out. "You never experienced it, or if you did it was long ago."

"I don't know if I want to see it like that in a projection…" She spoke quietly as she turned his gift over in her hand. She looked back at him. "Is there a way to get it back to that state?"

Gale smiled as she handed it back to him. He clenched his fist around the delicate stone. He nodded as he reached forward and placed it on her flightsuit, it stuck immediately like a magnet. He didn't give her a choice.

"I've had an idea of how we could achieve it... But I'm doubtful if it would work." He said, this would be the easy part… "But we must do something first."

The plan unravelled in his head faster and faster. He walked slowly to a large slab embedded in the wall. Its surface was covered with a large ornate diagram. The City hung in the middle, suspended in a ring of clouds, with eight smaller rings scattered apparently meaninglessly around it. The earth turned majestically above it, the marble itself flowed with ancient landmasses. He pointed at it, he took a moment to find the words.

"We need to find a way to make enough people at once see the city. Seeing is believing. When it's there, in plain sight, anyone who isn't an idiot would believe in it. That might be enough to save it. Buy it time, a year maybe more. Then with each generation the story of it will trickle down like it used to. With a generation of believers we might just guarantee Humanity's continued survival." Now for the hard part.

He turned back around, eyeing up the young woman who stood in front of him. He could see it in her eyes, the drive he held in the real world. Though like many things, he doubted if it would be strong enough to understand what truly had to be done.

But he had to try...

"And how do we do that?"

"You have to trust me first, it won't be easy."

"When is anything?" She said with an almost crafty smile. "Where do we start?"

"We find each other in the real world as a start…"


	9. Taking Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realise I could type in this box.  
> Yeah, urm. Trigger Warning.  
> No seriously even I find it grim and I wrote it!

Carola's face was awestruck, the smile had vanished very quickly. She blanched for a moment, her expression like he had reached behind her and smacked her head. Gale watched it all fade away, and as it did, the aura of restoration around her receded into nothing. Walls lost their detailing, carvings faded away. The turning earth he stood besides flaked its colour into nothing but dust. Her face suddenly turned into a frown.

"You can't be serious!" She practically barked.

"I am." Gale responded calmly. Carola threw her hands up in frustration.

"You're just like everyone else! Only difference is you wait for people in a decayed City instead of prowling around the internet!" She snapped back at him. It was taking a lot of effort for her not to just walk out. Gale took a step forward. She took a step backwards, maintaining the distance. "I bet you you're in my bloody home aren't you, perverted scum."

"We have a responsibility, Ms Lucian, to every man woman and child that walks the Earth. As of now we are the only two people that still believe in the City. We are all that's saving it." He explained, he took deliberate steps forward, and Carola slowly backed outside. She was exactly where he needed her. Her death stare trained on him as he gestured at the World Tree's branches above him. "We are the only thing keeping it alive."

"It's a tree in an ocean of water it is very happy, it won't die soon." She scoffed at him. "You on the other hand are not going to get what you really want Mr Mayfair and if you take a step closer you won't be living much longer. I've known your kind for years, I ain't guna let you have your way with me on the pretense of bringing some stupid City-"

Gale lifted a finger to his lips, she silenced very quickly. Almost shocked really. He unfurled each finger one at a time, counting down for moments of peace.

He pointed at the open canopy again.

"What do you see?"

"Nothing that's going to make me trust you." She said, she threw down her flightboard. "Sod off, Mr Mayfair."

"Carola Wait!" Gale barked as she took flight, she flew very quickly away from him. Gale dropped to his knees, his body shook. In the distance he heard the toll of a distant clock. His time was running out.

Part of him wanted to fly after her. He doubted it would help at this point.

With a wave of his hand he summoned his flightsuit.

He had to try.

Gale leapt from the roots of the World Tree into the sky, but she was pulling away far too quickly. Needing speed, he called his Shardship after him. He was still mid flight when it met him. The vessel flipped nose down, catching him in its seat. the canopy sealed shut immediately, his hand already holding its control crystal out locked onto his distant companion. She banked upwards, spiralling and turning to try and throw him off.

With trained commands he pursued the distant speck of his former companion. She was fast, but the shardship was faster. Carola glanced back, through her helmet Gale could see rage.

"Leave me alone!" Her voice barked inside the shardship. Gale matched her speed, less than a few meters behind her.

"Carola we need to work together." Gale insisted. It wasn't the answer she'd wanted. Her armour disengaged, he saw her reach to her throat. He pushed his fist forward, hoping to knock her from the board before she could do something stupid. She already had...

Gale could just watch though as her body faded into dust, the flightboard fell from the sky, pinging against the nose of his craft.

"NO!" He barked, the dust of her body rushed past the shardship. He dropped the crystal in anger, true rage for the first time in the city. Not at her, in no way at her.

Gale pounded against the shardship. His fists made cracks his aura couldn't heal. He punched his canopy hard, sending it erupting from the ship's hull. His feet kicked, their soles glowing.

He crashed against the ocean's surface as it caught him. The shardship foundered into its deep, leaving an eruption of sparkling water and white foam that ensnared him like the fires of hell. His fists threw up water as he swung at it. His helmet retracted as he roared at the world he'd always loved.

He swung his fist at the air beside him, as if by chance he caught her flightboard with it, sending it skipping over the surface like a stone into the distance.

Gale sat on the surface of the water in absolute silence. He saw something descend towards him in the sky. It fell slow, and dignified.

He snapped it from the air as it came to him. His hand opened to show him the cracked pebble.

The unwanted memory...

Gale placed it against his waist, letting it stick as his eyes drew up to the skyline away from him. The city's glistening spires caught his eyes. They rose so proud, even cast in devastation they still stood proud... As he should have.

And stand he did. But not proud.

He could almost see more light drain from the city. The water turned grey, a mist seemed to descend. He opened his hand, feeling the contact of the shardship's crystal through his gauntlet. For the first time ever in his life, it remained cracked. He heard another chime…

The ocean rippled as what felt like another cataclysm shook the City of Dreams. He could even see from sea level the chasms open up throughout the City, he was powerless to watch what must've been hundreds of spires fall into damnation, their contents unknown, their creators long moved on…

Their memories now long forgotten...

The end of this world was fast approaching...

Alone he stood…

Alone he walked, a broken man...

He spoke to himself, the madness of isolation once again sat in. He didn't want to believe it.

He listened hard, the City was silent. It was quieter than ever.

And he felt, on some level, no one believed in it anymore.

As the ocean rippled gently underfoot he thought of many things. He thought of his old life. He thought of his marriage. He thought of his son. He remembered every moment he could. Flashes of memories drifted by, like an old movie. Every clip to black was an image of the City. He could see his wife smile, he could hear his son crying, he could see the sights he once marvelled.

And between them, he saw a City gently turn to ruin. He saw colours mute to grey. Lifetimes of work crumbled, life carried on without care. People move on without thinking once about what was left behind.

He looked ahead...

And Gale felt the rage again.

The rage at the people of the world. The rage at those that called him mad. The rage at people who didn't care about anything more than themselves.

And he felt the rage at himself.

He listened as hard as he could to nothing.

He grasped onto memories long gone.

"Maybe some things were best left to die…"

* * *


	10. What Hides Inside?

When Gale awoke something had changed... The sounds... It had to be.

The sounds were... there?

But weren't they?

He listened. He listened to them, he heard them all. No longer were they a wild array of white noise bearing down and entrapping his kingdom. He could hear them, he could hear each one so clear. He picked out each one and listened to them.

The marketplace outside, the vendors, the buyers, the cars. The rain…

Gale then opened his eyes. His room looked... different? Why would it be different? In ten years nothing had changed...

He looked at every mark on his ceiling. The stains from upstairs' leaky pipes. The many thick cobwebs. The broken light fixture and peeling plaster. It looked... refreshed.

In fact it all did. Like a thick smog had been cleared. The air was fresh. The patterns on the fading wallpaper were strangely inviting, even if they were stained grey by dust and smoke.

Gale rolled onto his side and propped himself up on the edge of his creaky bed. He could feel every tendon pulling, he could feel every muscle straining. His bones creaked, his joints cracked. His heart began to beat manically. His head span, his eyes wandered...

He saw everything in his room. Unopened moldy boxes, faded books stacked on bookshelves, damaged crates and rotted furniture. Why hadn't he noticed its condition before?

Gale reached for his glass of whiskey. Its contents ready and inviting, the amber liquid was like liquid velvet. It yearned to be consumed. It called to him, its gentle whispers wormed their way through every nerve in his body, finally sauntering into his mind. It worked to seduce him, like it had done for many many years.

He gave it what it wanted. His shaky hands worked together to raise the glass to his mouth. Its smell saturated his senses. Smokey, dry, oaky…

His hands continued to shake as he tilted the glass. The ambrosia snaked its way down the tumbler's form, touching his lips it was almost numbing. It pooled, almost teasing him until it pushed through. The taste exploding through every sense. Its effects were already felt. His heart slowed, his breathing turned deep.

Gale lowered it back to his lap. It's contents half consumed. Yet he noticed something. He raised the glass back to his eyeline, the liquid sloshed and jostled. The glassware was stained with filth. Green mold crusted around the base, dirt and grime coated its exterior. Waterlines ringed its interior like layers of rock. Small white semi circles intertwined around its rim.

It hadn't been cleaned for ages…

How did he not see that?

He pushed himself to his feet only to fall back slightly. Gale looked at his legs puzzled.

"You boys fancy pulling your weight?" He grumbled at them. Even his voice was different, it sounded slightly interested. Gale rocked forward and heaved himself, groaning to his feet. His steps were shaky, his legs were wobbly. Old wounds showed themselves.

He worked his way slowly but surely to his bedroom door. Gale struggled to step over the scattered items and boxes. Old toys, magazines, memorabilia, trinkets and knick knacks spilled out of toppled over boxes and sat dejected and tired. Memories clung to each one, yet memories that were long lost to him. He'd never know the significance of any of them ever again. They were now only the remains of a lived life.

Part of Gale felt sad about that. But it was an issue to be dealt with at a later time. He'd reached the door, its hinges were stiff and heavy, just like every night he had to heave with all his weight to open it.

He stumbled back as it opened. His arm snapped out with laser precision and lightning reflexes, grasping onto the door jam and arresting his near fall.

But hell did his body throb with ache afterwards. Gale gritted his teeth. He leaned against it, his face contorted in pain. His knuckles were turning white.

"Gale!" He heard someone shout his name. He couldn't even register who the voice was.

"Don't... just... stand there... that takes the piss!" He barked, his voice was crackling. His body was locked tight now. The pain refused to subside. He could feel static as someone held onto him, their touches were reserved but delicate. "Cory…"

"I'm here Gale, come on let's get you sat back down." She began to pull him into the bedroom. He wouldn't let go.

"Not on that bloody thing!" He spat in one breath. With a marathon's worth of effort he lifted his leg. His joints were locked, it took everything he had to even bend his leg.

"Living room? Bathroom? Throne?" Cory asked. She was taking mental notes of everything, his lack of mobility, his pain, everything.

"Living room…" He huffed. He'd pulled away from the door. His energy levels were plummeting by the second. Each step hurt like hell, yet every one his muscles moved that bit easier. His breathing was getting heavier by each passing second. He could hear Cory behind him giving out unwanted words of encouragement. He tried to croak out for her to be quiet, yet his pain shrouded his mind, only the drive to keep moving held strong against it.

With his heart thundering in his ears above a backing track of static they made it to the living room. His eyes flicked from item to item.

His memory got slowly foggier and foggier. The events of those moments from the doorway to the chair went by without recognition. He could feel the chair beneath him yet he couldn't recall getting to it from that point. His mind said he should still be standing. It said he should be still walking. Phantom movements plagued his body.

He could just about hear Cory say she'd be just a moment, yet he couldn't retain it. He saw her run from the room. His eyes even followed her, yet nothing else could.

There was no playback of those events. There was no consciousness in those moments. He was a spirit with a loose attachment to a body, he couldn't tell if it was his, or why. He couldn't tell if he was there or not. He didn't even know what had happened, if the pain had brought on this sense of lostness or something else had.

Gale was scared. He sat in that void looking out his eyes truly terrified.

"Breath Gale, Breath." Cory said as calmly as she could, barely audible over the sound of his own heartbeat. She was placing things in his mouth, small objects. He could only feel them on his tongue, the taste was vile.

He suddenly found himself looking up at the ceiling, his head had been tilted back. He made no attempt to hide the terror in his eyes, he struggle to keep them locked onto hers. She avoided them at all costs.

Gale felt fluid run down his throat. He was drinking. The liquid was cool and tasteless. It was horrendous.

The endless tide of pain intensified. All Gale could feel was it now, and nothing more. Every sensation had faded into its depths; it was all that linked him to life now. It continued to rise, it continued to consume him. He was drawing tired, exhaustion was filling him, yet his body pumped with more adrenaline than blood. not even rest could quell this attack.

The assailant drew final stabs of pain through his body. each strike hit every nerve, it shook every muscle. Every thought, every memory, every sensation he'd ever felt in those briefest of moments was torn open and replaced with it.

His body reacted to it, it shook to it...

For those briefest of moments, there was nothing but.

"Gale?" Cory asked. The sudden silence was deafening.

"Am I dead?" He could finally muster those words. Like he had to search through the library in his mind for each one. The world was replaced with darkness.

"No, thankfully." She replied, he could hear her smile.

"It's so dark…"

"Gale, open your eyes."

Like a baby's eyes creeping open for the first time, he stuttered under the light of day. The glow of the waking world filled his senses. A warmth he'd not recognised for ages. He didn't repel it, he didn't hiss and shy away. but it did sting, but not anything like he had just felt. Not even close.

His kingdom came into slow focus. The blurred smudges of shape and colour gradually gave way to form. He could see Cory smiling at him.

He could see piles of boxes in the distance. He could see the light pouring in through the window.

"What was that?" He finally muttered between pants. Sensation flowed through his body again like fluid. Cory's smile faded slightly. He wondered if he wanted to know.

"Your war wound hasn't gone away, Gale. You're not as strong as you once were." She explained slowly. "Some things never heal."

"Cory, don't shit on my lawn." He snapped back, it hurt. He could feel the fire reigniting, and as it did the noises on the world outside began to press on him once again "I know what my CRPS feels like, this wasn't that."

"You're right." She admitted. "But it and your pericarditis caused A brief bout of arrhythmia" She paused for a moment. "Fighting's over but the war isn't."

"Is it ever?" Gale retorted. He didn't know how he felt, nor what he wanted to. He just knew those four words repeated in his head. Ones he never wanted to hear. "End of the line…"

Cory stopped herself in her tracks. It saddened her, just that little bit. She felt Gale's gaze leave her. He wasn't asking, he was stating.

"You have a lot of life left in you Gale, you're not there yet." She said as firmly, yet as warmly as she could. She wanted it to be fact. She shook her head in despair as he pulled a crumpled cigarette box from his pocket, plucking one out with skilled precision. "Please don't Gale, you've just had-"

"A heart attack?" He interrupted. He found the power in him to rise from his seat, strength that shouldn't be there, yet there it was.

"No not a heart attack…" Cory trailed off as Gale walked past her, slightly in shock that so quickly he was moving about in his usual shuffling fashion. He turned back to her, still wobbly, but more furious.

"But that's what you just said. 'Your heart started to beat out of rhythm." He waved his hands in the air. "That's a heart attack!"

"Gale listen-" She began, rising to her feet, she kept her stance open.

"No bullshit Cory!" He barked, fire was in his eyes, fueled by depths of hatred. The old Gale was back. "I've seen people go through this! I have seen people, in the heat of battle, shit themselves so hard their heart stopped! I watched men hit by grenades that survived, then died on the stretcher as their heart-" He quoted with his fingers mockingly. "'Went out of rhythm'. I've just had a heart attack, I'm at the end of the road, Don't tell me what I shouldn't do, I'm gonna live before I die if you don't mind!"

He spun back around, his movements were jagged. His usual pain was back, a familiar friend now compared to what his body could really throw at him. He swept a bottle from his radiator and stomped to the window.

"I ain't gonna sit and be all passive and say 'Oh Dr. Haylay I don't want to die.' I ain't scared of it, I never have been! Hence why I didn't shit myself to death!" He snapped the window open and leant his head out. "Will you shut up you loud bastards!"

"Gale getting angry will make things worse." She said as gently as possible. "I know you don't want to hear this but drinking now would be very bad, you've just had your medication. I'll get you some more water."

"I'm an environmentalist, I don't drink water." He growled. "When fish start living in whiskey I'll stop drinking that too."

"You did just now." She said as she made haste to the kitchen.

"Only because you poured it down my bloody throat, and those damn pills!" He spat. He quickly undid its cap, taking a mouthful of the burning ambrosia within moments. He drank it like it meant everything, he drank it like he needed it to live… And he carried on, with no other want in the world.

Cory walked back as he finally separated the bottle from his lips. He'd drunk half of it in one go. She let out a sigh. You try and stop him, he tries ever harder.

"Gale are you trying to kill yourself?" She asked, frustrated. She placed the glass loudly on the radiator, her frustration seeping into her actions. "Don't you care if you end up doing serious damage?"

"Why should I? No one else does." He said simply, he sloshed the liquid in the bottle, it called for him again but he didn't answer it.

"I do, Alban does. I'm sure if Tala was here she would too." The expression change was quite quick. At the mention of her name he gripped the bottle harder.

" _ Wake up now!" _

His frown lines deepened. it was time for a tactic she'd never used before. "I'm sure your City does as well."

"Don't even go there." He said, pointing at her with the bottle. There was probably a good reason she hadn't gone there before "Don't go to either of those places. That's the low road, it's boggy and sad down there, that is my territory. Go take the high road like a good little pup."

"Well as your doctor I can't let you do that. If you're going to drink whilst on these meds I will have to make a best interest decision and take it all from you. You need your meds, you can't have them with alcohol. So I will have to put you in for alcohol therapy." She was once again straying into unfamiliar territory. Cory took a step forward, then another. Gale didn't react to any of them. He didn't even move, yet like a hunter waiting his eyes didn't leave her. He never blinked, he never shifted. He might as well be a sculpture.

"Gale…" Cory reached out, placing her hand on the bottle. She gave it a gentle tug. His grip tightened further, his knuckles turning white. "Give me the bottle.

Cory could feel the rage burning off him. It seemed like only his respect for her held it back. Gale knew she wanted to help...

But it wasn't enough...

Cory jumped. A sudden crack rippled through the flat.

Her eyes sunk from his own down to her hand as she felt a warm liquid flow over it. Gale's knuckles were white. His fingers oozed with blood, coating it and the broken bottle already. That same hand raised, and a bloodied index finger uncurled towards her.

"Leave this flat." He ordered, his voice a low growl. It was calm, his words cold as ice yet sharp as blades. Each one made her soul gently vibrate, shaking Cory's very being. "And never… Ever let me see you again."

"Gale please." She pleaded, trying to muster the right words for an apology.

"You are not my doctor anymore." His words were still low and nearly quiet, yet his next ones weren't. They came forth deep and loud like the commander of a massive army. "Get out!"

Cory nodded. She didn't say another word. she backed away slowly, watching the man stand there breathing very calmly. She was easily eight feet from him when he moved again. Stretching his hand to his side to drop the blood sheened bottle neck from his hand. It clattered on the stained carpet.

Cory pulled her phone out and immediately began ringing someone as she finally turned around and walked from the room. Gale could just about hear the conversation over the noises from outside.

"Hey… Yeah you need to come to your dads, Al… He's thrown me out, properly this time… his heart was acting up, and I said…" Her voice became silent as the door shut loudly. Gale let out a huff of indignation.

"Al?" He asked himself. He shrugged it off, raising the broken bottle to his mouth. As he made his way to his armchair he drank more of the dark liquid, sucking it through his teeth as a strainer. He continued to ponder the nickname. Pulling bits of glass from his mouth he turned to the window, fed up. "Shut the hell up!"

* * *

"I didn't think you'd have me back…"

Gale didn't know how long he was asleep for, but it couldn't have been more than thirty minutes…

He came to, standing still on the ocean's surface. The Skyline ahead of him had collapsed. Towers and spires now rose as decrepit ruins, like stumps of massive trees, scattered with debris all around. The sea level appeared to have lowered, like it was slowly being drained. The faceted ocean floor rose out of the surface in places. The waterside shores had now become sheer cliffs. Behind him the World Tree now rose on roots like a mountain from the oceans depths.

The City was grayscale, like a noir film. Everything was a slight off shade of black, white and grey. It gave the feel of a graveyard, Whatever had happened here since that last night the city was at this point near death.

Gale realized he couldn't hear anything. Not the rippling of waves or the beat of the City's heart. He laid his hand on his forearm and the flightsuit beneath his glove remained as it was. There was no restoration, the surface remained cracked and muted. The plates remained smoothed and pitted like it had been sandblasted.

All he could hear was the haunting, distant howl of the far off spires. The sound echoed across the ocean, surrounding him and ensnaring him.

"Help me…" Gale begged the world around him. He drew the cold air in, and bellowed at the top of his lungs. "Help me please!"

Yet it wasn't enough...

The City didn't hear him. Nothing did. Gale felt truly alone, a feeling familiar yet forgotten in recent days. He stepped forth, dragging his feet. The soles of his boots flickered like they too were dying.

Gale suddenly felt solid ground beneath his feet. He looked down. The seabed rose unmarked out of the ocean's surface. There was no apparent waterline, merely the still, flat surface suddenly rose faintly upwards. It was pure, unbroken. It sat the same as it always had, yet now it rose to feel the air across it for the first time. Tiny crystals the size of pebbles were scattered across it, deposited by unknown means this far from the ocean's shore.

Gale reached for one, plucking it from its brethren he turned it around in his hand. The faintest of marks gave away its previous existence as part of one of the finest spires, long forgotten, long scattered into the depths of the ocean. It had met a fairer fate than most of its brethren. It remained with the City after death whilst so many took the plunge into abandon.

Gale pulled his arm back, and in a swift movement, fired the piece of history across the ocean's surface. It bound across it, landing with an almost unnatural ping only to bounce ever further away.

Gale was skipping these relics of a glorious time like stones across a pond.

It was somewhat relaxing actually. It felt unusual. Not that much unlike the days of wandering the City aimlessly. He was merely filling the time he had to himself.

It brought a smile to his face, each throw it went further and further. He was engaged in a one man tournament. His challenger was the previous throw, his goal was that little bit further.

He would have happily spent his time in the City doing that. Yet after a while each throw became slightly more disjointed. He could hear the sounds of the real world echoing through the depths of the dying city.

"Dad?" He would hear, it would rebound through the distant spires, echo across the great ocean and come to him and him alone.

Gale dropped the remaining stones, leaving just one last in his hand. He fought the will to wake, his arm arched back.

He couldn't tell if he'd thrown it or not...

* * *


	11. The Truth Hurts

"Dad?" Alban asked, his voice was still slightly echoey. He was starting to shake him gently. "Dad?"

"What." Gale groaned, batting his son's hand away. He brought his arm back, covering his eyes from the creeping sun. "Be useful and shut that curtain..."

His head rolled forward, eyes still closed. "What are... you... doing here?"

"Cory said you had a fight, that you needed looking after." Alban stated as he did as he was asked. For a change, Gale noted.

"It's clotted already, 'Al', go back to work." He grumbled, he examined the gash on his hand with keen interest, he could see small reflections amongst the thickening scabs. They were welcome to stay. He suddenly lowered his arm, locking eyes with his son. "When did you start being called Al anyway?"

"When I started seeing her, Dad." Alban said simply. Gale put his head in his hand, he could feel the dried blood crack against his forhead. "She said you cut yourself, and you had a heart problem, aswell as a CPS episode…" Alban took his place on the footstool. "Not a good day…"

"She's five years younger than you Alban. Get someone your age." Gale grumbled, pulling his hand away and reaching for his whiskey bottle. He needed alcohol, it was the only thing that made sense… Or made things make sense.

"Dad. Do you need bandaging?" Alban asked flatly, taking the topic back to where it needed to be, away from his father's stinging judgement.

"No, I don't need banging." Gale grumbled, raising the broken bottle as something thudded to the floor. "You're doing enough of that already."

Alban was silent. Gale took a mouthful of the burning liquid before looking at his son curiously. He too was looking at something, fear and what looked like wonder in his eyes. It reflected back at them, like it was speaking to him.

"Dad. What is that?" Alban asked, nodding towards the object.

Gale cocked an eyebrow, and followed his son's gaze. He thought he might've dropped his pocket watch, or the bottleneck.

In his kingdom, Gale held many treasures. Things that meant a great deal to him, or to someone else. Like a warden at a great museum he was their keeper, even if he did a foul job at it…

But there was not one thing, not a single heirloom or trinket on this Earth that now held as much meaning, as much promise as the little pebble sized crystal lying softly on the floor.

"Dad?" Alban could barely find words, his father couldn't at all. He just starred, his eyes were transfixed on the small rock. Light bent in mysterious ways, it made the carpet around it glow and sparkle. It shattered the light of the still creaking sun into its component essences, scattering them unnaturally across the room again and again. The longer the light rested on it, the brighter it seemed to glow.

It did not belong...

Alban reached towards Gale's bottle of whiskey. Gale wordlessly held it out to him, both were gripped by this… thing's presence. Alban cringed as he took a large mouthful before handing it back. "Dad. Where Did you get this?"

Gale tried, he really tried.

He tried to explain this peculiar stone, yet there was nothing else that could come close to bringing about its existence. He watched as its surface began to cover with tiny cracks, each one splintering through it's cast rays of light. The facets on its surface wore away into a fine dust that scattered in place of all those colours on the stagnant air of the flat. Each spec sparkled in a new light, like each one had captured one colour for its own.

The cracks deepened, fracturing this stone to its core, yet somehow it didn't break.

"Can I?" Alban finally asked, gesturing at it. Gale couldn't do anything but nod. Alban reached for a discarded tumbler, using it to carefully scoop up the rock as if it were beyond delicate. It rang softly against the glass. Alban held it as close as to his eyes as he could, and when that wasn't enough he reached into his pocket for his glasses. Alban squinted at it, turning it every which way. He murmured theories silently, trying desperately to build some sense from this strange rock. Even now it had been worn and withered by unknown forces, it was still pure, untouched.

"That face makes you look like an idiot." Gale grumbled. Alban looked at him still shocked.

"Dad, how can you just say that?" Alban placed the broken bottle into his jacket. His father pulled out his pocket watch. "Why don't you start by telling me what this is?"

"I'll pass." He muttered, his motions were stiff as he began rocking back and forth. With a driving force downwards he got to his feet once again. Gale gritted his teeth as there was a brief pang of pain in his chest, he rubbed it, hoping the tightness would fade.

"Am I just giving this more significance than its actually worth?" Alban was once again spitting his words like venom. Part of him wished that each of them would stick into his father's back, alas Gale's skin was too thick for that. "Maybe you really are playing all of us, did you get this from the park?"

"You're the one with a multi-million quid company, why don't you find out for yourself!" Gale shouted back, He lit another cigarette as he took the last two shuffling steps to the threshold of his treasure room. He stopped, he could feel his son's eyes on him. He placed his hand back on his chest as the ache returned, and with it the sense something bad was about to come…

...and he finally found the words…

"You never needed me anyways." His words weren't harsh, they atleast weren't meant to sound harsh. The pain continued to build. He looked up at Alban, his eyes were still transfixed on him. He looked like he was expecting another firefight of words. "You can stay. Don't follow me."

Gale went into his kingdom without a further word, he swung the door shut behind him. He listened carefully, hearing his son start talking to someone, more than likely down his phone. Alban never inherited the ability to vocalise to himself as eloquently as his father could.

Gale let out a silenced gasp of pain. He leaned back as his back arched. His neck began to feel stiffer, his joints began to crack as he moved. Today was a bad day.

Through another mountain of effort he got to his chair, his throne creaked like he did.

His routine began, the only one he really had. Unabated by the presence of another he flicked on the ancient transceiver and wound the volume up. The frequencies were nought but static. The whitenoise was peaceful. Random yet constant, a beautiful chaos.

Gale's pen found paper in his massive journal. His words flowed easier than before. Small, yet meaningless events flowed together, and only on paper did he realise a pattern.

He continued to write absentmindedly, and then realization, this time, hit him like a freight train.

He dropped his pen in shock, its ink spattered across the page. His eyes were wide, like he had seen a ghost.

The mechanisms were so precise and intricate, yet their design was laid out afore him like a great schematic. He flicked back through the pages, passing over memories once desired, now dismissed.

Eventually he found it. Something he'd written so long ago the paper had begun to stain and crack. He ran his fingers around the large diagram, the same one from his abode within the city. The earth might not have turned, yet every detail was the same, right down to those rings.

"Eight doorways…" He mumbled, his pen back in his hand. He used it to point to various elements as the thoughts became words. "Eight different beams of light…"

He began to deface the intricate design with eight lines, each connecting from one ring to the City itself. He remembered the rooms behind the doors.

"Each containing their own city…" He next drew small spires in each one. he crossed out two of them. "Two broken doors, two broken Cities… Its balance is disturbed…"

He looked at his palm, he could almost see the pebble sitting there. "Something so small could cross once those links broke…"

He thought about his next move like an expert tactician. A series of moves one leading to another. For the first time, he felt as though the City was revealing a part of its nature.

"Destroy the others…" He began crossing out lines, he was imaging them as ropes holding something in place. As each one broke that something began to sway, until it could be held no more "... And then, the City can be seen by all..."

He had a plan.

"Maybe…"

For as long as he could remember that was the first day his broadcast was late.

* * *

Gale was standing on a hill now. The ocean's flawless waterline sat many feet below him. The ocean's depths continued to be revealed, bit by bit.

The greying aura seamed thicker now. Almost as if a fog had moved in, hazing away the most distant of spires, and dying the colours of the city deeper into grayscale. Shades and phantoms walked those mists, seen yet unseen. The only thing unaffected was the still beating dawn sun, it's surrounding sky was not as lucky

Even the ocean looked sick, its deep blue faded into a muted stoney grey.

Gale still couldn't hear the city's heartbeat, and in a way he was glad. He could still feel the sorrow it was calling. Its life was ending, like any approaching death, the City was scared.

Gale clenched his fists, the flight suit creaked as the gauntlets scrunched tight against one another.

His gaze was firm, like staring down an unseen enemy. His eyes began to flick back and forth. In his mind the plan's design played out. One event led to another, and carried on until that image of a populated city once more gleamed in his imagination.

It was time to begin.

Gale called out silently. His call was ignored.

Gale didn't stop though. His call found new meaning, a request, a conversation until finally it became words escaping in his voice.

"...I've done bad. I've done things I shouldn't and I know on some level I knew what I was doing and I wanted to. I pushed more people away than I care count, and I even pushed you away. But you've trusted me enough all this time I have one last thing to do…" His words were becoming passionate, his emotions sprang into each one and were projected across the draining seascape. "But I can't do it without you."

The world was still. It hadn't changed. His vision dropped to the sea beneath him. Gale felt he could give nothing more than that now. The tightness persisted in his chest.

With his head bowed down he couldn't see the object hover above him, until it got close enough that he realised there was no silence anymore.

With a beaming smile he looked up as it drifted to eclipse the sun. The Shardship's hull dripped with water like it had only just broken free of the ocean. Its crystal hull strained the light through into muted rainbows. its elements were darkened, yet somehow it still remained vibrant and willing, showing its loyalty to he that hurt it. Slowly it descended to arms reach

Gale stretched his arm out, withdrawing his gauntlet as he did so. He rested his hand on its nose once again, feeling the cracks and pits of its skin beneath his fingers. He could feel its attachment to him through it. The hum of its mystical propulsion filled him.

He waited with each breath. He was looking for something amongst all the sounds around him. He was searching for a feeling missing beneath everything else.

And as he found it, he grabbed it as hard as he could.

The Shardship's nose pulsed gently. Every time its texture changed, turning smooth and unbroken. There was hope yet.

Gale leapt from the hilltop with new abandon. His hand grabbed the control crystal from his belt as he landed, and the craft immediately followed his command. He climbed into its open canopy with strained movements. He didn't have any fear over his apparent weak condition, it was merely a sign his plan could work.

The skyline began flashing past far too quickly. The Shardship was flying with a renewed vigor, pushing itself harder, pushing itself faster. There was no darting between spires or through viaducts and causeways. There was no time.

In moments he had that spire in sight. Its eight point crown rose definitely higher than its surrounding shattered spires. It clung on. It had the power.

It had to fall...

The shardship rushed to an eventual resting flight high above the city below. The causeways were indiscernible, merely camouflaged with debris and wreckage. The eight points rose just above it. Gale eyed them carefully. The structure refused to betray its cause even now. The crown was no different than the rest of the tower, but that in itself made it unique. Gale cocked his head, he had questions for it, ones he'd get it to answer.

With his ship silhouetted against the still burning storm far beyond the city's reach he climbed onto its hull. The shardship rocked gently like a gliding bird, an elegance and grace to its flight. With careful feet he stepped out onto its wings, so he could look right at the rising beacon ahead. Its surface was cracked, a once clear surface like glass was now frosted and pitted.

Gale's eyes thinned. He examined it very carefully, trying to learn and observe what he could before the test. Yet it remained stubbornly unyielding.

He raised his hand ever so slightly past his head. Nothing.

Even higher, still nothing.

Full reach… Nothing.

He glanced over his shoulder, the ebbing cloud of light and fire remained equally unwilling to pass its secrets.

Without a word spoken Gale's flight suit spluttered to life. The shoulder blades glowed once more, albeit far dimmer. Yet it remained enough to lift him from the Shardship, arm outstretched.

Then his world erupted with light.

It was pure, there was no colour to it. It was just light, light let off by something far far more than just the City's own will. It was as if its very structure was exposed there in the sky. The light was the form of a gently swaying rope, drifting on unseen, unfathomable currents like its end had been severed. It hit his hand and illuminated the world bright enough to be akin to a star. Yet its perception, the awareness of its existence alone was unknowable. Its essence was alien, its cause truly beyond anything of comprehension.

But its purpose was clear. Gale let himself drop to the craft beneath him. He hastily directed it to the next beacon , his hand above him once again. Even now the former beacon's light was still present, a thin very fine beam nowhere as strong as it once was.

This time the light came from beyond the city as well as from the beacon itself. It flowed in both directions akin to water along a tight line. It never drifted, it never faltered. This string of light remained. The rope was fixed.

Gale removed his hand from the flow, with an inaudible clap the light flowed into the beacon uninterrupted once more, the light from the tower shot out far beyond the fog wall, fading and waning to a thin strand once again.

Gale could follow the light into the grey clouds. He could barely make out a single light like a distant star far away. His mind showed him the image on the mural once again.

The City, with lines connecting to stars…

"No…" He whispered, having to vocalise the web of thoughts and theories into one. He looked back at the tower, at the huge storm ways away.

The thread of light above him, the way one rippled. The way one was taunt.

"This City is suspended…" He muttered.

Doorways.

"By other Cities…"

He couldn't understand it, nor did he know why. The methods of how were beyond him. Yet there was a little sense he could make…

And that was that these lights, and that bridge far far away were the only things that kept the City where it was, wherever it was. The diagram was in his head again confirming that theory.

Cause and effect.

That stone came into the real world, why? Because of the fire on the very horizon he gazed at. The City felt like it dropped, why? Because of that fire. A link severed...

Gale jumped back into the Shardship as the pain in his chest increased. He took steady breaths as he flew the craft away in a relentless charge.

So if severed them all?

He continued to fly, keeping his momentum as fast as he could. The pain began to cause spots in his eyes.

The ShardShip charged into a long sideslip, encircling the stump of a long fallen tower.

" _ Dad are you there?" His grip on the City was fading, and yet Gale couldn't figure out why. A distant voice was calling, yet he couldn't figure out who it was. _

He charged faster and faster at the tower ahead of him, aiming for just below the touch of the now shattered skywalk… At its thinnest point…

_ No… It was his grip on something else. _

He had to check his hand to make sure he was still holding the crystal. He couldn't feel it.

The blood screamed in his ears. He felt like this was it, that there was nothing more after here.

His breath was raspy… His chest was tight… to the point of pain.

Absolute Pain.

"Thank You… For believing in me." He said, with two voices, to his shardship.

The devastation, the pain, was unbelievable.

The dream and reality mixed together, he could see himself flung from the shardship. Yet he could see his son leaning over him. Frantically speaking to someone in words he could no longer comprehend. He couldn't perceive, there was only pain and numbness.

Gale could see the falling wreckage, the tethers broke. All of them.

He couldn't tell if he hit the floor. There was only void.

Gale remembered two people, both of them standing over him. One in each world. He couldn't tell the truth from the not, the real world from the dream. Both were looking at him with panic and dread.

Both were looking upon him like upon a dead man…

His ashes faded away.

* * *


	12. Spirit of Man

There had been nothing. So much nothing...

And in it no concept of time, place, being or even existence. There was no sensation, there was no reason.

It was just void.

But slowly, the very basics of senses came back. The ones that were just there.

He could feel the blood flowing through his veins again, pumping weak but there none the less. There was no reason to it…

He could hear the world around him, thick and echoey albeit. There was no reason to it…

On his breaths he could smell the clean air, the scent of bleach and worry. There was no reason to it…

"What are you…"

"...It must be…"

"Explain…"

With no rhyme or reason he couldn't understand the voices. The words they were saying seamingly without meaning or cause. They just echoed, like they had been there for a long time, drawn out over so long.

Gale wished for nothing more than the world to begin making sense again. He could feel things in him, feeding his veins. Something was taped to his chest, beeping away.

Sense meant nothing there, wherever he was. He couldn't make any, nore could he understand anything. His mind was dazed, his body didn't hurt, yet he couldn't feel anything either.

It took him a few moments to realise his eyes weren't even open. the darkness was so bright. What had happened? He couldn't bring the memory back. It was just gone.

So he focused on the voices. They knew what had happened. Maybe they knew what was going on.

"...There is some truth..."

There was a pause. Still there were only snippets. There was little sense. A question? A statement?

"...you mean?"

The world began to fade to the ever present haze again. Like something was pulling him from it. He fought it.

He battled it with all his will.

He didn't want it.

He was scared, like a wounded beast. He wouldn't let it take him.

"Are you suggesting this City..."

He won.

Yet it was a long time before he woke.

Who on Earth thought making that damn heart monitor beep so loudly was a good idea?

Also who thought painting a hospital white was a good idea?

"Welcome back." Who thought…

"Alban?" He groaned. Gale scrunched his eyes shut, the light was unbearable.

"Hello Dad." He sounded more distant. The light seemed to lower slightly, its colours were muted out. Gale felt his eyelids open, he knew he had commanded them to, there was the sensation of spectating slightly. He didn't feel fully in touch, like his connection was weak. Most of the world around him was fuzzy.

His son was all that was in focus. Gale couldn't recall doing it, but he knew he smiled though. The worry on his son's face meant nothing. His presence so close meant nothing.

The black rings around his sleepless eyes meant it all. The faintest specs of stubble did, as did the faint watermarks down his face. Discreet, yes. Almost indiscernible. Yet their cause was obvious to him.

"Did you cry?" Gale croaked, his voice was harsh. Not that it was meant to be.

"Of course I did." Alban looked almost insulted. He looked like he'd been betrayed, after giving up so much. The hurt was ever present, and it fuelled into the anger that made up their lives. He couldn't help but snap back. "Why would you ask that?"

"Just wanted to make sure." He said with matching scorn. His eyes began to wander off his son as the world came into slow focus. A few things on a table over there, a garish poster over here. Vivid curtains split the rest of the room, yet no doubt it was more of the same; More beds, more curtains and more bloody beeping machines.

The cleanliness of it all was clinical, it was truly horrible, almost unnatural. He wanted to spill something, just to make it feel that much more homely. That's what hospitals were though, unnatural.

"Dad?" Alban snapped him from his observatory gaze. He must've been that way for a while. His eyes locked upon his son's unnaturally fast, a quizzical look on both.

"Why am I in a hospital?" His voice was flat.

"You had a heart attack." Gale's eyebrow raised. It wasn't from a lack of understanding, Alban always cut through it with razor sharp accuracy. "It might not have exploded, but a heart attack is a heart attack."

"So why'd you take me to hospital?" The calmness in his voice was almost harrowing. Alban searched for the right words, shock faded away. The frustration that made up their relationship returned.

"Didn't you want me to? Did you want me to leave you screaming in agony and dying on your bedroom floor?"

"Not why did you call them, you greased weasel." His eyebrows lowered into a steady frown. "Why'd they bring me back."

Alban's expression suddenly softened. He scanned his father's face. That frown never faded, that gaze never lifted.

"That's what this is about?" He put his head in his hands, there was nothing else that came to him.

"This is not my world anymore…" Gale whispered. His gaze was empty, it had now moved away from Alban, past the curtains around them. It was as though he could see something far away, yet he could not tell it. Neither could anyone else.

"I took that stone to the lab." Gale's head snapped back round, Alban's voice was cracking. His facade was failing, like the impacts of realisation after realisation had begun to shatter who he was. He straightened, searching for the words. "It matches no known elements. It has no charge in its atoms, yet it has an energy to it. Its existence defies the laws of physics… They can't understand how it is possible."

Alban looked down at the floor in a mix of disbelief and shame.

"It should not exist." He exhaled, his father still watched him. "It is not from this world."

"It's from the City." Gale said firmly. "What have I told you all along?"

"Dad so much is going on here it's hard to see straight… The facts don't line up, none of this should be real, something weird is happening here." He finally looked up, carefully pulling up his father's sleeves. "Your body is covered in bruises for seemingly no reason, and they're symmetrical. Like someone drew them on you to a pattern…"

"Instead of listening to science why don't you listen to your old man?" Gale pointed at him. He briefly caught a glimpse of one of the red marks around his wrist. "The City is as real as the chair you sit on."

For quite awhile Alban was still, and on some level Gale eagerly awaited his reply.

But he got up, still without words, but shaking his head. Gale let out a silent exhale, and watched with near tears as he left still without a word.

Denial was such a beautiful thing…

* * *

To awaken amongst ruin and debris would cause anyone to panic. It would cause their world to spin, the questions to come forth at a terrifying pace.

And it did here too.

Gale leapt to his feet and immediately regretted it. Crashing back down to the floor now coated in a thick layer of scattered stone and crystal. He clenched his hands in it, feeling each fragment flow around his fingertips. He slowly drew upon his strength as the memories came back to him.

He pushed himself into a kneel. His eyes weary surveyed the collapsed ruins that had lain waste to all in their path. The stump of the once massive tower stood still proud, yet it was definitely dead. No more of worth than the countless other sundered spires and steeples. It had smashed apart the causeways snaking its base, the viaducts ensnaring its base had too fallen. The broadwalk was scattered with remains of roads that had stood against the coming tide. Their condition was now little more than the many districts that surrounded it.

"What did you do?"

"What I had to…" He replied, his voice was croaky from the still emanant ash and dust. "You left… I had no other choice."

"So like everyone else you get upset and smash up a load of stuff?" She was perched on the remains of one of those strange doorways, clearly unaware of the purpose it once served. Like everything here it was dead.

"Not quite. I'm not like anyone else" He replied awkwardly. Carola landed on the littered ground with a puff of dust underfoot. It caught the fading light brilliantly, less of a grey matte and more of an ever twinkling nebula of muted colours. Like everything else it faded to nothing. "Acting without purpose is as useless as not acting atall."

She wasn't too happy with that answer, her body tensed like he had crossed some unknown line. “How did you know it would work?”

“Well…” He trailed off quite quickly, trying to make sense of his own logic. Less logic, more hope. “Have you ever heard of the phrase… Winging it?”

Carola was silent for a moment, her head slowly fell into her hands. They gripped her helmet hard. “You have got to be kidding.”

“It was worth a shot.” Gale insisted, he looked around the desolate surroundings. “And it worked. Not exactly like I got anything to lose at this point…”

“What about your life you idiot!” She snapped, her visor glared at him. She made steps towards him. “Don't you care the you could've died!”

“Not really.” Gale shrugged, almost carefree. “Again, nothing to lose. Everything I have I’ve already lost.”

“Well that’s something I can understand.” She stopped in front of him, a frown no doubt hidden behind her helmet. “So tell me Gale. What was the intention here?”

"I was trying to weaken the City's grip on this world. Whatever made it has secured it here, I attempted to loosen it." he broke eye contact with her, looking down shamefully.

"What makes you think any of this is actually real, Gale?" She asked, doubting her own words. "Can't a dream be a dream? Can't hope be hope? Can't they be nothing more than that?"

She was gentle. She hadn't said anything out of spite even though, at least in her mind, she by far held the right to. She was talking as one person to another, regardless of circumstances and causes forced between them.

Gale took a brief second to find his next words. He wanted to be fierce, angry. Tell her to look around her and feel the mud. He wanted to bellow. She was here? Why couldn't she accept it? Why!

It seemed that part of him was gone…

"I have bruises up and down my body from my flight suit. A piece of the City came back with me. This is as real as it feels…" He explained carefully, although like always he avoided certain truths. She nodded with loose understanding. One could never truly understand this place's power.

"It feels pretty dead now…" Carola held out her hand. With a painful strain, Gale took his first shakey steps on two feet again. He looked around slowly, and she was right. If it could feel any more hollow and lifeless then it'd be nothing more than dust. The spires now looked muted and dirty, cracks rippled through everything, like one firm prod could bring it all down…

...and it felt like it was straining. like a deadman's grip, it would fall away soon enough.

There was that ever present thought. It was already there, why not let it die? Let it fade away. A good memory for some definitely… A story to another maybe. The world had left it behind.

"We can't let the past die… How can you hope to move forward? All of you?" He pointed at a random spire. "Think of it this way: Someone made that. Someone filled it with their dreams and their desires. Good or bad it didn't matter. That was theirs. Every facet, every room it was them. Like a home that you live in for decades and you make your own. Doesn't matter what anyone thinks, that's yours. Your memories, your best times, even parts of yourself you didn't know about… And they abandoned it…

"There is a reason each spire was unique because each person is too! look around you, it's not just all withered and died… It all became the same. Nothing but scattered rock and stone, dull and lifeless… That's why I've always said the City can save you all, because in the real world you have to be something more than the labels you live by. Worker, Driver, Soldier, Student, Man, Woman… Father…" He trailed off. His eyes glistened slightly before being blinked away.

"Here you can be who you are, not what you are… you can be what hides inside… That's all you should ever be. But that's not compatible with your world anymore. You get torn apart and judged not for being different but for simply not fitting with their vision of a 'perfect world.' Like putting on a show when you want to tear your heart out. The City give's people the courage to be who you are. That's why you need it…"

"What do you mean 'your world'? Aren't you human as well?" Carola looked back at him, her voice sounded vacant, he shook his head.

"This is my world…" He caught sight of a glistening blue crystal buried in the scattered mortar. He knelt down and plucked it from the dirt, turning it over in mourning. "This is what's left of it…"

The quiet felt heavy and dark. This world was so silent now, it was like a graveyard not for the living… So much was unsaid, then and now.

"Can you do me a favour?" Gale was thankful when Carola spoke again. "Don't break anything else."

He got up and turned to her. Her helmet was disengaged, she looked at him with recognition. She understood. Finally someone understood!

"I'm good at breaking things. I did it for a living." He said with a smile. It felt odd. "I'll try not to."

"I'm gonna think on what you said… I'm glad you're ok." She gave him a quick smile back. She raised her hand. "Goodnight Gale…"

She faded away immediately. Gale hoped she did not need long.

He looked at the scattering ash on the gentle wind. "Goodmorning… Friend…"

* * *


	13. The Long Journey Home

The time to shuffle on couldn't have come any sooner. Doctors and nurses wished him well with little more than a grunt in return. Gale had no interest in pleasantries nor in making friends. Not here anyway. There were passing words between them as to what had happened to him, but nothing more than idle curiosity.

Once you'd seen one weird thing you've seen them all. Gale was no different here, whatever the circumstances might've been. They might've had their questions, sure. But all of them faded away in favour of the next person when he climbed into that Mercedes.

It was the people who 'mattered' to him that still had questions to ask. Cory had tried, but she got nowhere. She was still a traitor in his books, and Alban couldn't bear the thought.

The Status quo had returned. With one solemn difference.

He too had a clock over his head now.

"I thought you liked driving?" Alban asked as his father drew a crumpled cigarette from his jacket pocket. After a bit of nursing the small white tube finally stuck straight.

"I do when I'm driving." He took his first glance out the windscreen. It was too sunny out there, he hated it. "Your lane discipline is awful."

"What do you mean? I'm in my lane!" Alban pointed at his mirror. He glanced over at his father, the man was searching desperately for a lighter. What a surprise.

"You might be but I'm in the bloody hedge." Gale grumbled as he finally lit up. Silence ensued for a minute or two, broken only by the faint rumble of the engine and the woosh of scenery whipping past. Gale flicked ash onto the floor, his mind elsewhere.

"Perhaps we should talk, what happened is quite serious." Alban, fiddled his ever present suit. He had no idea how to approach this.

"Everything is being left to you, there is nothing to talk about." Gale grumbled absently. He swore loudly and quite profusely as the car lurched to one side for a moment, and then scowled at his son with bitterness. "Are you having a bloody heart attack now? Keep your eyes on the bloody road!"

"Sorry Dad, I just…" Gale continued to watch him with that piercing glare. Suddenly a smirk covered his face.

"Thought I'd live forever did ya?"

"I always thought if the grim reaper came knocking you'd kick his shins in." Suddenly, from nowhere he'd come back…

His Dad…

"Nah, I'd set the neighbour's mastiff on him…" They looked at one another with equally subtle glances. Watching each other's smiles appear slowly before they both let out a chuckle.

Gale couldn't help but smile inwardly. This was special. He knew where his boy had gotten his hotheadedness from. Them both clashing had been spectacular… But now, Alban was right. There were more important things.

His train of thought ended sharply as he looked down, catching sight of the bottle of familiar brown liquid in his door pocket. The itch at the back of his mind came back. He thanked the stars that they were in the center of town. Alban's thoughts were elsewhere… Or at least they should be. The buzzing began.

He reached into the door pocket and subtly lifted the bottle, unscrewing it like it was an explosive. The noises began to press in.

The handbrake came on with a click. Alban muttered something about "Goddamn pedestrian crossings." He'd caught sight of a cute blonde, like any man his eyes were distracted very suddenly. His whistle was too loud and too sharp.

Gale lifted the bottle quickly. Smells of sweet coal and pepper filled his nose, he hurriedly breathed it in, moments before the neck touched his lips.

The taste was burning. It rapidly consumed his senses, it filled every nerve. It burned through him… Mouthful after mouthful. It was bliss.

Then it was yanked away from him.

"Dad! What the hell do you think you're doing!" His son barked. There it was again, there was the rage.

"What do you think you're doing?" Gale's voice was calm, but the rage in his eyes eclipsed his son's own. A horn honked behind them, giving them the beat that passed. The sounds didn't linger "Don't you ever talk to me like that."

"You've just had a heart attack!" Another horn. Alban scoffed with exacerbation, slamming the throttle aggressively. The Mercedes screeched off the line, slamming them both back into their seats. "Do you have any idea the amount of meds they pumped into you?"

"What would you know?" Gale's eyebrow was cocked. He took another mouthful of the whiskey without another care.

"Considering I was there the whole time you were unconscious, I know a lot more than you do!" They drove on a little longer, before he slammed the brake pedal again, discarding the black Mercedes on the kerb. "There you go, home."

Gale took a slow, lingering look at the open windows of his flat… His kingdom. 'home' was an exaggeration.

"Oh yes, sorry I forgot! Cory said you don't know how to open your damn door anymore!" Alban snatched the keys from the center console, shoving his door open and closing it with a car shaking slam.

Gale watched him skulk away, shoulders hunched and a clear look of venom on his face. He slowly began gathering his few effects. "You need to straighten your back, boy."

He followed suit. Far more gentle shutting the door. He muttered in mild aggravation as to the terrible parking and equally tasteless choice of car in the first place. The street was far from busy, yet those that knew of him couldn't help but glance. Either they were wondering why he was out or why he wasn't dead.

Gale didn't have the answer to either of these questions. He hurried along, taking intermittent mouthfuls of his ambrosia. He stumbled through his threshold and banished the outer world with a sharp slam. Didn't matter who he disturbed. Didn't matter if his keys were now locked out…

He was home.

He plucked a half smoked cigarette, lighting it before it'd left the ashtray. He discarded the small bag of belongings into the kitchen, peeling off the horrendous hospital gown to trade for his much prefered grey shirt and trousers. He stumbled around of course as he put them on, but to him it felt more like dancing. He was home.

He tugged the window shut sharply before the fresh air could strangle him, casting the slight remains of the outer world away. The now empty bottle clattered to the floor next to its many brethren, and it's half drank replacement quickly stepped in.

He continued his stumbling dance through to his living room, he refrained from looking at the mantelpiece, he wasn't ready for that. Instead of catching sight of the blood stained floor and radiator, someone had tried and failed to clean it up. Someone had been interfering with his kingdom.

And there he was. The perpetrator no doubt. Sat slumped in his father's own armchair. Gale couldn't tell what he was up to until he heard the deep breaths. He did say he'd been there the whole time…

He had the thought and he took the odd motion, tugging his jacket out from the young man's back and draped it over his lap. It was nothing special, he wasn't tucking him in at night like he had so long ago.

But what little majesty there was quickly ended. Alban jolted awake, his breathing was heavy, he looked around panicked for a moment before just as quickly calming.

"Pathetic." Gale hissed. He had felt many emotions for his son in recent years. This was the first time he felt disappointment. Alban was still spaced out, by the time he had brought his senses fully together Gale was already shuffling back to his radio room.

"Dad! What?" He called after him. When he'd caught up with him the door was already shut between them. There was no response, and even Alban wasn't brave enough to enter that room uninvited.

"Do you remember it? There was a time we all did…"

He let out a sigh, listening for only a few moments to his father's plea for help. He spoke so highly of it… Something he hadn't had in so long.

How could one be jealous of a City?

He left his father's flat in his own time…

Maybe he'll catch him in the morning.

* * *

Gale pushed up off the large fragment he'd taken rest upon. He landed slowly, like he was slightly weightless. He watched the rocks slowly fall to the ground, an air of mysticism filled this place now. The fabric of its world was starting to come undone. He kicked off the ground, his flightsuit spluttered to life. Even it's light seemed that much more dim.

As he ascended the broken base of the once proud spire he could see the desolation befallen upon his world. Few towers still stood, chasms miles wide split the cityscape like cracks upon the very surface of this world. tower's fell into them as they slowly grew wider and wider. Districts fell away and there was now even a new waterfall from the ocean not far away, bleeding out into the world beyond.

Closer examination showed the Districts that had been severed seemed to be drifting rather than falling… They weren't sucked down with the haste that once consumed them, rather they just floated away. The decay gradually consuming them to render them into little more than clouds of debris drifting above, below and around what remained of the City's hulk.

It wasn't dying, it was dead.

But yet faintly, like anything defying the tide of life, it clung on. A faint rhythm, no more than a gentle whistle of wind, not even a heartbeat. It was all that was left, but it was still enough.

Gale felt that drive again he once had, now in a different form no less but it was renewed again. He would not let his world die. Not until he had stopped breathing anyway.

He looked in his palm at that small blue crystal. Its surface was so pure, unbroken and uncracked. No decay dared stain it, not dust impede it. it's light almost danced for him, the only mark of colour in this grey world.

But it wasn't the only thing that appeared truly out of the ordinary.

Wisps of dulled white light, flicked like strands of rope high in the sky, looping back around to themselves, heading back into the distant fog beyond. It was a physical reminder he'd been successful.

The city's anchors were severed, and whilst it might've made it that much weaker, surely that would make it that much easier to save.

He watched the white strands of light for a short while as they danced on an unseen aether. His gaze only lifted when ashes began to descend from high above even that.

He needed help from someone who believed it…

It felt unnatural disengaging his flight suit from this height. Yet sure enough he didn't plummet like he would've a mere couple of weeks ago. He drifted with those ashes slowly to the ground, and as he landed they took the form of her avatar in this world of dying dreams.

"Gale." Carola nodded towards him. She looked stern.

"Carola." Gale quirked an eyebrow, his hand clenched on the shard in his hand. "Have you made a decision?"

"Not one to mess about are you?" She met his raised eyebrow with one of her own. "I'm fine thanks for asking."

"There isn't time for pleasantries anymore. You know that." He cut through it, same as ever. Same as with anyone.

"On the condition we meet on my terms. Belgium. Sint Truiden. Nowhere else." She said firmly. She pointed at him. "Try anything and I'll break you."

"Would like to see you try." He smirked, before quickly carrying on. "I can be at Dover by midday tomorrow, Calais by mid afternoon." He paused, his smirk faded away word by word. "Tell everyone you know of this place."

"Everyone will think I'm mad."

"Welcome to my life." He grumbled.

"Y'know you never said the real reason you are invested in this place." Her eyes narrowed, she made way to the twisted and knurled remains of a buttress. Gale watched her give it a gentle stroke, the metal of its body seamingly untwisting and straightening under her touch. Her faith here was strong, like his was long ago. The fractured stonework underfoot formed into reasonable chunks in her footsteps. She hopped onto the metal beam, landing seated with a refined precision. "You say it's about the honourable cause of 'Save the city for the future', yet you hate the world we live in… So that's not really it… is it?"

"Half right." Gale buried a foot into the dust and fragments underfoot. His aura was barely noticeable now. "I do genuinely fear the day this place isn't here for us… But yet there is a lot more." He grasped for a reason as quickly as he could, hoping she didn't see the disbelief that formed in his eyes. "It holds a significance not even I understand, a will almost. But for me, It has memories here. A Lot of them. Everyone in the world can visit this one place in a heartbeat, I've met people and said goodbye to people here… This is for them."

"Yeah. No. That's bollocks. You think people who can't come here are less than human, I don't buy that. Don't lie to me or this whole thing is over." She spat her words like a mouthful of venom. Understandable really.

"It really isn't, Carola…" He looked at her pleadingly. "That's the best explanation I can give without… Without bringing it all back."

" _ Help me!" _

Gale's expression went vacant for a very, very long time. He didn't stare off into the horizon or gaze at his friend. His eyes didn't care where they landed. It had all come back. It had never left.

it was always there.

He sniffed, snapping himself from that trance, wiping his eyes quickly and as subtly as possible. He wished he'd made a still in all his years here. "It won't matter soon anyway…"

"How so?" The sudden emotion was unnerving. People react irrationally when emotions get involved.

"If we can't save the City then it'll be all over for everyone."

"You really think when this place is gone, that's it?"

"Without being who we are, what will we become?" Gale let out a deep sigh. "I wouldn't want to live in a world where we are all mindless drones. I think the end would come quick for everyone."

"The end? You mean Doomsday? Apocalypse? Dogs and Cats living together?" Carola looked out over the desolate land from her perch. Dismounting, she focused hard for a minute. Beneath their feet the cracks unwound, the debris reconnected, but it was not enough to undo the damage once done.

"Mass hysteria." He muttered smiling faintly at her attempt to bring life back to the City, as well as at the reference. She had hope. Yet when her eye opened again the decay returned once more. It had overrun everything like weeds. Yet still, he swore he'd heard a beat of a heart that was not her own. "Mankind would lose its soul. We can either save this place or destroy it, we have to at least try."

"You got a plan?" Oh how a redundant question to ask, and Carola knew it. She sighed at herself.

"A plan? Now come off it. I haven't the slightest clue what I'm doing." He said with a cynic's smile. "But I have an idea that might work now. We need the whole world to see this place at once… So if we can show it to everyone, all at once… Maybe it'd live again. There's one last anchor holding the City here." He pointed up at the severed strands of light. "They broke when the tower fell. This decay, this ruin was only brought to the City when you all left-"

"Stop referring to me as one of them I'm not. I'm here aren't I? You are not alone." She snapped at his words, drawing a firm line.

"When they left the City." He didn't apologise. "If this decay was caused by the real world then that would imply that the City is weak to it. Fragments of the City have crossed into the real world, so if there is a way to reverse that, bring something from the real world to this one we might be able to sever that last link…" He trailed off. If he could lose his own train of thought how did she have a hope to follow it?

"How do you even know it works that way?" Carola watched him carefully. He pondered for a moment, even starting to answer only to fail just as quick.

"I don't." Gale looked down at the ground. Its pure surface was completely covered, nothing came through of the true craftsmanship beneath. He swept his boot through the thick heaps of broken crystal and dust.

The solid marble slab beneath him was hewn with cracks like shattered glass. Each fracture sundered many small rivers of white silver embedded just beneath its shining surface. He looked back at his companion, she watched him curiously, like she always did. Patient yet wary. "I've tried so many ways. Doesn't matter if it works or not… It's worth every effort for me. If this is one of another long line of failures then at least I can say I tried… But if it works, if we can sever that link and break it free, it is worth however much sacrifice."

"Why use its kryptonite?" She asked, hoping to understand the still, seamingly flawed, logic. She pointed at the remains of the tower. "You did that with a single seater ship, why not find a bigger ship? Why go through the effort of bringing a massive sledgehammer here?"

"Don't think it would be that simple…" He waved her upwards as he kicked off. Ascending rapidly with Carola in close pursuit they came to an eventual hover high over the City's skyline. Its closest edge was now visible, a hard boundary that nothing dared cross. It was natural unlike the broken cliffs at the edges of fallen districts. No, this was where the City was meant to end, right at the edge of the fogbank, with just one single thing spanning it.

The bridge still rippled with colour and light even now. It was alot weaker granted, and many of its own stanchions had collapsed upon it, yet its span was untouched. Even from here it was flawless. Just like the City's distant heart. Just like the World Tree. It would be amongst the last.

Like it was the soil it'd grown from.

"That is the last link." He said simply. "Destroy that bridge, and the city will either die like a limb without blood, or its link would be severed, and all we'd need to do is-"

"Wake up…"

" _ Wake up!" _

They moved off from that point, travelling together across the desolate broadwalks side by side. It was of little note, merely small talk and the simplest of remarks. Yet it held some form of significance to them both. The agreement had been made, there was little else left to do right now.

In the hours that followed Gale would look behind him and swear to see another. The echo of another heartbeat hinted at it, yet never did they approach. Never did they come close.

Yet just like Carola, if they sought answers they'd come in time.

There was some familiarity to this one though, someone he'd met maybe. They never drew close enough to be seen in any level of detail. They merely watched, they merely observed.

Awaiting, with apprehension, as to their next move.

* * *


	14. Without Regret

For the first time in all his years, Gale awoke with unlimited energy. He threw himself off his bed, even changing the clothes he'd worn for many days now, even between the most recent trip. He found himself in his bathroom, his mirror long cracked from a powerful impact. Gently he rested his fist against the cracks epicentre. His reflection stared back at him, his tired grey eyes filled with the final flares of a dying fire, framed in a withered face covered in a shabby scraggly beard.

"Who have you become?" He asked. For the first long while Gale actually took a look at himself. He could remember the man he once was, the man who he still tried to be in the City.

It was so hard now not to see the world in bitterness it was beyond second nature. To see something but actually appreciate it had become a struggle, one that he had never noticed was happening. The man he had become he would never have seen long ago. He was not the man he aspired to be.

...and he'd been comfortable with it.

He still was, but some things needed to change.

This was one of them.

But that was a thought that would torment him for however long he had left.

"No bloody razer." He grunted, taking a moment before he searched the few storage spaces. Fruitless, he found himself in his bedroom. He opened the top drawer of his bedside, reaching in to pull out the closest thing to the item he searched for.

Gale walked up to the cracked mirror, twirling an old, yet still sharp bayonet. Its black blade was scuffed and tired, its days of glory as long ago as his own. He rested it down in the sink, wetting the blade before drawing through his facial hair.

For the next while, Gale carved away the beard that had taken over his face. His hands were shaky and awkward, not used to this precision anymore. The grey hairs fell into the sink a clump at a time as the rudimentary razer cut through them bit by bit.

He next properly looked his forgotten face over when he was done, he had no idea where the want to at least seam presentable came from. He had it at a familiar length again, the length it was the last time he had properly given himself the once over. He ran his hands through his hair, the long greasy grey locks curled around his fingers.

"Unacceptable now, Gale." He muttered, taking a fistful of his hair in a tight grip. His other brought the blade shakily up, sawing through it with vicious determination. A pounding on his door broke the silence, signalling the arrival of another person to bother him and interrupt his best laid plans.

Not that he cared, for once his hair was the priority, for the moment at least. It didn't take long for the long mane to be cut back to the length he had long ago, the length he has in his City… That was the real reason behind this sudden bout of masculine grooming.

Gale's eyes then drifted to his shower, covered in grime. Years of pooled water sat still and green. Another thing in disrepair.

He ignored the pounding on the door. He ignored the moans of his body, and the state of the water as he reached into it. Years of crusted stillness shifted on ripples, and from its depths he pulled out something he hadn't seen in years.

The memory of the night he'd discarded them had come back to him in a short burst, but it didn't change the shock of emotion upon laying eyes on the metal band once again. He wiped the chain down with a small towel, letting it slightly regain a long lost luster. The gold band was basic, yet it remained still pure after all this time. It had defied the dirt and grime, waiting for its time, a time that will never come again.

He slipped the chain around his neck and in a moment he felt he was back.

With his work done Gale made his way to the front door, casting it open immediately to the sight of his son. What a surprise.

"Hello, Da- What on earth has happened to you?" Alban practically did a double take at the sight of his father. He scanned him up and down, the man looked like he had cleaned himself, bar taking a shower. He locked onto the knife in his Dad's killer grip, still wet from shaving. He pointed at it, slightly concerned. "Err… Dad? Knife."

"What?" Gale said, confused, taken aback almost. He glanced down to his hand. "Ah right."

Gale's arm whipped out fast and almost lazily, throwing the bayonet with trained ease. The blade sailed through the air, landing with an audible thud as it impaled itself in a door frame. Gale turned back to his son, he still seemed to only be seeing the change. Gale wanted his boy to see him. He pleaded for it. But he felt that bitterness again, and quickly it took over.

"Happy now?" He grunted to him, the younger man only nodded causing his father to scoff. "Bullshit. You never are."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alban growled back as his father walked away from him. The man didn't stop walking even when he pulled the knife from the frame. there was a loud clatter as he discarded it. Alban trailed his father into the living room, he stood at the door frame with his arms crossed. "What about the other day huh? I was happy until you decided to become suicidal."

"Well?" He asked pointedly. His father glanced up at him from the chair he now sat on, His expression loaded with barely contained venom. Yet it wasn't aimed at his son anymore.

"Well what?" Gale asked, his son's aggressive tone matched to his own.

"I come to visit you and you immediately insult me. What is that about?" He snapped at him.

"Sorry." He whispered. Alban scoffed.

" _ Sorry? _ Don't say something if you don't mean it." He sneered. Gale stood up, slightly stunned.

"What makes you think I don't mean it? Why do you think that?"

"Because you bloody actions you stupid old man!" Alban's voice rose. "Ever since Mum left, damn it the reason she probably did! You're a fruitloop in absolute obsession with your bloody City! It  _ may _ be something fantastic, but you don't bloody give a shit about those that actually do love you!"

Gale frowned, he pointed with his lit smoke.

"Your fault." He growled. He gestured at his sun from head to toe.

"Yeah what the hell did I do you didn't?"

"You bloody ran!" Gale barked. "You ran and you buried your head in your work! I might've driven us down this path, but you sure as shit put us on it in the first place!"

" _ I _ put us down in the first place? You were the ass who drove Mum away! Why else would she have got in that car!" Alban's breath was heavy. He stuttered, then took a deep breath to quell the rage that threatened to explode again. He was definitely his father's son. "Do you think I want us to be like this?"

" _ Please!" _

"It's what seems to have happened ain't it? Nothing but bad blood and glares sprinkled all over what remained of 'us'!" Gale threw his last words with the rhythm of a well trained vocal dualist. He let his frustrations of this out without volume, it wasn't needed. "What was I supposed to do? Where else was I supposed to go when I found out that my son became a belligerent angry man just like myself?"

"You love that place more than you love me!" Alban practically screamed, saliva spat from his mouth, tears began to break at long last. "Don't you see why I'm so fed up with this bullshit!"

"No." Gale's voice was low, his eyes were piercing with anger… "Never."

"Well you're a blind drunk then! Rather fit-"

"No." His father cut him off. Alban's rage might've doubled at that remark, but it also stalled slightly. "I never did."

"You never what?"

"I never loved it more than you." he still glared, that if anything made it harder. The anger wasn't at his son. "I lost my angel, then I lost my son. It's equally my own doing. This…" he gestured between them. "Bullshit, the hardest part of it was only seeing you when my time had begun to run out."

"Don't be melodramatic Dad, this isn't the time for that!"

"I know why you have been coming here more and more. Why in five years did I never see you once! And then, suddenly in three weeks I've seen you nearly every day." He tapped his chest. "Running out of time isn't it?"

Alban couldn't tell him if he was right or wrong. He honestly didn't know which was which anymore. The lines had blurred so much. All that mattered in that moment was that when the tears began to flow even more.

"Mum would laugh if she saw us." Alban chuckled, laughing slightly himself. Gale glanced at the photo.

" _ Tala for god's sake! Wake up!" _

"Yeah she would… She'd beat our heads together." Gale smiled, that glance lingered on. "I have something I need to do, Alban. Before this is over." He explained clearly. His son looked up with his eyebrows furrowed. "If this is it, whether it is or not, then please let me do this before they take it all away from me."

"Surely it'd be better to stay here?" Alban pleaded. He became frustrated when his Father shook his head. "What? After all that you still need to go focus your last days on that… That place!"

"I have to do this, Alban. It's not for me it's for everyone. Including your mother." Gale begged, "She was there… I was there when it happened."

"Don't you dare go there, Dad." Alban warned, pointing at the man who drew on his rage in kind. "Mum had a car accident over eighty miles from here!"

"Exactly!" Gale shouted so hard he wheezed. The pain and anger that struck his face made it all the easier to see. "She fell asleep! What do you think that means!"

He begged for the day the memory would fade. It plagued every moment, it made the charm of who he was fade into the man he'd become. The world had been tinted, what else could matter? Not after so much already.

"You are delusional dad! We are in the middle of something here!" Alban snapped after a moment, Gale looked towards the door in disbelief, his heart on a plate and his son wouldn't notice. "That City isn't what's important, it's a dream! If you go on about it now, especially after all I said I will leave now and never come back. I'm tired of it, Dad. I'm tired of the bullshit." Alban snapped. His words caused Gale to look at him straight away.

"It wouldn't matter if you walked out that door anyway. You won't see me after today." Gale responded firmly, pointing down the hallway. While his son had given him an empty threat, Alban could tell this one was very real. "I've got something I need to do, doesn't matter what gets in my way. This is for your mother, this is for everyone."

Alban recoiled slightly, stepping back with the weight of it all. He rubbed his head. Resignation slipped into his head. The mad fool couldn't change.

"Yourself more like." Alban sighed, sounding disappointed. He reached into his pocket. "Have you drunk today?"

"Not yet no." Gale replied.

"Amazing that." Alban tossed his father something, Gale didn't catch a proper glimpse until he had them. He opened his hand to stare at the car keys.

"Can't stop you anyway can I?" He whispered, not making eye contact. Alban took a deep breath. "You got paper?"

Gale only pointed to the shelf behind his son. The bitter man cursed him, cursed them both. The silence was deafening as he waited.

Alban put away his pen and handed the scrap of writing alongside several fistfuls of cash, once again, without eye contact.

"If you're going, you might as well tell her what you're doing." He explained just as he finished.

He held his hand up as Gale went to thank him. "Just go Gale."

His father pocketed the cash without hesitation, yet his heart grew heavy as he held the torn off scrap in his hands. He caught what seemed to be a look now of shame from his son.

How he'd grown…

Gale scooped up his jacket from the armchair, checking its pockets quickly for all his effects, scooping up a faded passport as well and his cigarettes for the next few days. He avoided the sight of his son just as he had himself.

A look of equal shame on his face as he entered the hallway. He didn't glance back, not once. Hearing the sounds of Alban taking up his father's armchair as the door shut between them.

How they'd both grown...


	15. Man's Endeavour

He saw the Mercedes as soon as he entered the car park. The black car did not fit in anywhere near here, it was top both of the range and massive. However, given the faint scratches on the folded wing mirrors, noticed only when Gale gave it a thorough once over, it was evident it barely fit in the carpark.

"Alban you have too much money to spend… and you don't care for the shit you buy." The man muttered as he opened it.

It had been too long since he had sat in a car, let alone drove one. Yet as soon as he took up his driving position and rested his hands on the steering wheel he immediately felt it come back to him, the engine roared as he hit the ignition. The beast growled, awaiting the journey.

"Ok, we've got over five hundred miles to cover, then find one lass in a country with a population of two million." He muttered to himself as he adjusted everything, pulling out a cigarette in the process. With it lit he finally looked forward, like seeing the journey to come.

He shook his head viciously for a moment, a trail of ash and smoke dispersed through the cabin. He took one last look at, well… Home. He'd miss it, and he hoped, on some level, that he would come back to it again…

To it and his boy.

"You talk too much Gale." He spoke as he set the black beast off. Its engine begged to be let free as it rumbled to the exit. Its rumble was replaced with a pained scrape as it barely fit through the gate. "Does it need to be that big? Seriously… Bloody driven smaller tanks."

The roads were always quiet near his home, belittling the manic streets beyond. In a world of second hand cars and rusted vans barely road legal, the Mercedes stood out like a sore thumb, its glossy black finish reflected the lights of the world around it. It took little time for this monstrosity to push onwards, and hit the motorways of cloudy England.

All the while Gale thought heavily about what he was doing, where he was going. Someone he didn't know, yet he knew she could help to save what he cared about. If only Alban understood it, maybe this journey wouldn't be needed. Maybe they could've done it together.

That's what hurt the most, that this could've all been different. What was done, was done, even if it did make a tear shed loose down his cheek.

He wiped it away as quickly as it came, remembering that mistakes were lessons he hadn't learned yet. Just a shame this was one he couldn't ever repeat.

In the time it took for him to cross the country's road network he could feel the endless drop of his eyelids. The night had rolled in, with the setting of the sun marking the time long after he would normally descend into a sleep to take him to the City.

He kept driving, the lay of the land meaningless to him, the road signs that scattered the motorway he disregarded. Even the drivers around him, he felt nothing for them but irritation. The lights of the road drowned out the stars he used to look up to. Only a vague flash of silver light across the sky marked anything worthwhile looking up to. It was a pity. They, for so many years, were the only thing beautiful about this world.

Gale drove on in near unbroken silence. He said very little, mainly insults to other drivers. The radio hadn't played once during his whole journey. Instead he enjoyed the sounds of the road alone, the tires against the asphalt. The cars driving by, but most specifically, the roar of the car's engine, drowning out the crackle of his cigarettes burning away.

Try as he might he couldn't reach the cross-channel port in one day, and for that he knew he would owe an apology, if the old Gale would allow it. A time long ago he could make it to the port and cross in a night, but in these times Gale felt the fatigue of a long drive much sooner than he should have. It surprised him, admittedly, he hadn't expected that change to occur so quickly.

He peeled off the motorway up into a sophisticated service station, its architecture impressive for its means, but it paled compared to the spires he held true and dear. He parked the massive black monstrosity with little effort. Pulling it alongside cars that could only wish to one day be remade into something as impressive as it. Cars whose owners had a glint of envy upon sight of it.

The night air was frigid and sharp when Gale stepped out of the car, for the first time in many hours he felt the world beyond the spacious cabin. The world began to press on him with the dull roar of the motorway and the incoherent babble of 'them'. He sparked a fresh new cigarette shortly after stepping out, and hurriedly drew some cash from an inside pocket. With the amount there was no doubt he'd be able to get a room with it.

The car park took a while to cross, enough time for Gale to feel the pressure of the world compact him. He quickened his pace, letting the stub of his cigarette fall to the floor. The car clicked locked behind him as he walked to the hotel entrance. His feet scuffed as they went. His legs were dragging.

The room they gave him was quite bland. A regular hotel affair, it left much to be desired. But it was his new kingdom, at least for one night. His jacket was slung over a chair, he'd emptied his pockets onto the dresser. The room was a quiet haven, it was wonderfully isolated, he had no one to disturb him. It was bliss

Gale reached into his jacket for the little metal hip flask as he surveyed the new landscape one last time. He even took a despair-filled look at the hotel's menu. Taking a quick drink out of disgust. "Twenty two quid for a steak? You get that for half the price in Lidl."

Gale's eyes glazed as he leaned back against the dresser. He thought hard for a moment. A long moment.

His mind set ,he left the hotel, quick-stepping through the pressing commotion to the attached service station. It was late at night, it took a lot of effort to find someone who could serve him, he leaned down as the slow weight of tiredness began pushing.

"Do you have a map?"

* * *


	16. No Matter How Far

Where the pair had ended up on their walk through the City had a far more untouched feel to it than when they set out that night. The destruction from the collapsed spire was hidden behind the decayed and broken remains of others.

They were biding time, admittedly. The decision made not to act until they were united in the real world. Gale, as such, took longer to absorb his surroundings than he had the most recent nights. The need for action had always been there, yet tonight in the inbetween it gave him that lost opportunity.

It brought a tear to his eye this time.

When he thought the City's state was dire he'd never realised how much. Crevices smashed through the smooth stone broadwalk, its patterns and inlays once fit for nobility were now faded and smooth. Splits ran up walls, shattering the faded and eroded sculptures and once intricate mouldings. The towers and spires of a thousand colours had been greyscaled and muted.

The City now was barely of form. Its elegance and vibrance sapped away, with all that was left behind cracked and broken. He looked down a crossroads, and off in the distance could see what looked like a sloped cliff.

Only when looking up did he see that wasn't quite it. The severed districts didnt even fall anymore, they just drifted. Towers hung in the air mid fall, their debris still drifting away. It was like time had slowed, that this was the City's last breath and it was just drawing it out for as long as it could.

There was some grace to it. Even in death it tried to be beautiful. To a first time observer it was a staggering sight no doubt, yet it was merely morbid when someone knew what it once was.

"It's like you're waiting…" Gale whispered aloud. He didn't say it to anyone, but he knew it had heard him. Somehow, it was willing. He pleaded to it. "I can't go any faster, you will have to wait a little more."

He looked upon the ground. Dust and sand from the desecrated spires left a thin coat upon it, some had reformed to chips under his feet. His fading aura had sharpened. The restored land from his will had regained a colour. A shimmer almost. It would wait for him.

Gale coiled down and leapt into the sky. His flightsuit alight once again, he worked his way through the ruins scattered amongst the skyline. He tumbled and weaved amongst them, taking in each piece as he went by. So many memories, from so many…

All turning to dust and rubble.

After what felt like an age of flight, the never ending canyons of broken stone and crystal ceased being never ending. They reached a grey end, anomalous at first until the faintest trails of dusky fog crept into detail. The spires and towers became more scattered, like the waning edge of a forest. Their tips became less tall and proud and more shallow yet dignified. Each one of them was stopped with a crowning spike made of what seemed as pure white marble, their true form lost to the echoes of time as anywhere else.

The final end of the City was sudden. A mere wall of black stone, no higher than one's waist, seemed to endlessly run into the distance. It was a distinct line drawn around the City's true end. The causeway between it and the bases of those last towers was still adorned with intricate knotwork, the scale of the artistic pattern was huge for such a simplistic design. Yet the weathering and erosion that had scoured the City still left its mark, yet never taken from its form.

Gale landed next to a large obelisk, the definitive end of this broadwalk into the depths of the dream. Thousands more sat along the city's boundary, standing silent guard at the end of its broadwalks, each one still glistened faintly with the faded light.

As Gale stood up he heard the wind of an object pass him by. He thought it was, at first, the wind.

"Hi." Carola said, standing up as well. she gestured towards him. "Thought you were on your way?"

"I am, I just couldn't get to Dover in one night." He answered with a shrug. "Should be there by tomorrow night though, I've just got one more thing to do beforehand."

"Ok…" she nodded slowly.

"Nothing to worry about. Won't take too long, hopefully." Gale hurriedly thought of a way to move the topic away from… that.

"Well when you get here head for the church, the big one. Hard to miss." She'd noticed the uncomfortable expression he'd donned, so she made the move for him.

"You know you're being very trusting."

"What you mean meeting you in the real world?" She chuckled like someone had told her a daft joke. "Yeah well, I haven't got anything or anyone to lose. But if you do try anything don't worry, I'll be ready for it."

Gale nodded, flashing both his eyebrows. "Yeah neither do I. Not anymore."

"Bad things happen?"

"The worst." He said, brushing the topic away once again. He gestured up the City's edge. "Come on, time to discuss the plan… again."

"Right." Carola said assuredly, throwing down her ever loyal flightboard as Gale kicked off into the sky. After they both steadied in flight she pointed towards the City's edge. "So why are we here?"

"It's the last anchor to this world." His voice echoed in her helmet. "It's the only other place I can think of that has a connection to everything else."

"What, to the fog?" She asked, dodging out the way of what seemed to once be a balcony. She took a look at the distant wall of cloud. It looked more akin to smoke, dense and thick. Its surface rippled on invisible currents, wisps and jetstreams pulled it into strands. It looked enshrouding, it looked unbreakable.

Yet there was one thing that pierced it.

"Exactly. There it is."

Carola's flightboard kicked back as she reeled in surprise. It was abrupt, its presence was without warning. They crested the edge of the City's perimeter and there it was. One long span jutting out into the clouds. The end of a mighty causeway that looked no different from any other. it had been the only one to grow out of the City, yet it's presence felt integral.

As it breached the faded edge of the smallest towers it's architecture changed entirely. The gaping arches akin to an aqueduct were replaced with long spans of flat crystal, it's surface rippled with every colour imaginable, even as the City became greyscale. Its light flowed into it, it fueled the City. That same light that flowed amongst the City in its prime, flowed from here never endingly.

Large supports were emblazoned with an almost gothic design, ancient beyond even the City itself. The mammoth towers that rose to meet it were hewn from stone that matched the darkness of the wall. It's surface pure as night, yet engraved and chiselled with indelible accuracy. Even amongst the corrupted purity that had overran the City's great skyline, it still held strong.

It was damaged and broken, no doubt of it. Some towers never rose higher than a stunted lump of rock, and many more had the great beams between them dashed across the floor below, or worse, into the abyss itself. However whilst the immaterial components of its structure had failed, the bridge of light itself ran unbroken, even when the space between its supports stretched for miles, it still held straight and true. It plunged into the fogbank. It was all that was left.

"We need to break this..." Carola asked as she kicked up over the bridge's precipice. She landed on its surface with a gentle step. The landing was seemingly unnoticed like stepping off a bus. Gale landed like the end of a high jump, far less graceful about it than times previous his was more like stepping off an escalator. "How the hell do we do that? Does our power get magnified if we're nearby?"

"Not quite, that's for part two of the plan." he said, running his hands across the pure crystal. He folded the glove away, the crystal was warm on touch, the light flowing beneath was pure. "The City is weak to the forces of the real world. It caused all this." He looked to the shattered spires in the distance, to the cracked and sundered districts just drifting away. The City's last breath. "So if we can bring something here from it we can break it free."

"Sounds like killing it," Carola stepped up to gale. Her eyes on the skyline, backlit beautifully in the fading dawn light. "Thought you wanted to save it?"

"If doing that is ending its suffering…" He said, mournful. He felt the tug of the morning upon him. "It's a gentle balance. We break it free, then wake up-"

* * *


	17. It's Never Too Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me again. Hi Hi. Erm, yeah this is again a trigger warning. Lets face it we all know whats going on in this chapter. I am sending you my sympathies if any of you have gone through something similar.

Gale awoke suddenly in the breaking sunlight. He hissed at it like a vampire, turning over hastily, trying to cling onto that fading world. Yet the never ceasing onslaught from the waking world tore it away ferociously. He opened his eyes glaring at the opposing wall. Life had great timing.

It didn't take him much long after to ready himself. He was eager to set off. Eager to get the job done, seams as the time had been taken from him oh so quickly. He sent a faint prayer to the City, stay alive. One more day.

He would've made it straight for the car, had he not noticed the unusual looks on the patrons of the service station. All who were not rushing watched a suspended TV screen high on the wall. He followed their gaze.

The headline was a shock. It stunned him to say the least, and the pessimist in him had doubts of it, just like many others.

Yet as it was for fact, he knew it was true.

"We are awaiting a statement from both the lead scientist behind the project, as well as the owner of the Mayfair Corporation. Should be happening anytime now." On hearing of his own name, even in the guise of Alban himself made him ask questions. He reread the headline; 'Alternate Dimension Found?'

"Good morning. I would like to begin by saying thank you for attending at such short notice at this ungodly hour." his son looked bedraggled, his eyes bloodshot, his hair a mess. It made Gale sigh, yet out of bitterness seeing him in a state felt good. "As I'm sure you are all aware, my company released an utter ludicrous statement last night. Yet it was one that has been confirmed by our top researchers and those that are at the head of their field." He gestured to one side at a group of assembled scientists.

"It was a statement that I myself refused to believe, until I realised that, on some level, we all knew it was true. Our dimension is one of many. We have uncovered irrefutable proof of a structure, unbound by our laws of physics that exists outside of not only our observable universe, but beyond our dimension of space itself. This structure appears to have been made by the very fringes of mankind's consciousness, since early man gained sentience. So not only have we discovered an alternate space, but the oldest artificial structure in all of history... and the evidence of a world beyond this dimension, is this."

Gale's jaw bounced off the floor. He looked upon the crystal that awoke in his hand. It was so cracked and fractured at first, yet after moments of appearing on screen in front of so many it became whole again. It even began to glow with a glorious resonance. People saw it, people believed it. Images came up of drawings, evident from children although a few images from prestigious artists appeared too. Towers, spires, a glorious cityscape of a thousand colours...

"We believe that this is concrete evidence of the construct outside our own space-time. One that came into existence long ago and to this day, still stands despite being in a ruined state. To repeat and embellish the facts; This structure, this… City… seems to exist by laws similar, yet different from our own. It is made, and dependent entirely on the power of unconscious thought… and belief, alone. It exists in what can be called a zero-energy state until such a time as a human recognises its existence as fact." Alban took a deep breath, a chart appeared onscreen beside him, quickly followed by several more drawings of the City of Dreams. "What gets even more outrageous, is that so far under query, it seems that something close to eighty percent of those interviewed last night, some sixteen thousand people of all ethnicities and age groups all recalled the existence of this city in their dreams…"

The words following the statement faded into a haze. One that caused Gale to look away aghast, shocked, and close to having his roots pulled out from beneath him...

"...now many people are rightfully criticising the Mayfair Corporation for putting out such a statement, even after peer review. What doesn't help their new findings is it is apparent from internal sources that this was personally requested for public release by Alban Mayfair himself, who allegedly disowned..." The 'studio expert' prattled on with words, meaningless criticism outright, yet each one knocked Gale back.

Gale hurried to leave as quickly as he could, pulling his collar up to obscure the remains of bruises as he got stares from several onlookers. With the final words he heard being ones he knew so well by now, yet spoken by someone he thought would say them: "...do you remember it?"

Gale broke free of the building and took a deep breath. His senses slowly came back to him. He took another deep inhale of the morning air, and an equally deep one through his cigarette.

"Alban..." He whispered, looking out across the carpark, then further up into the heavens above. He smiled. It was probably the warmest smile he'd ever had. He walked, almost drunk in shock and ecstasy, back to the car, dropping into the driver's seat, still gobsmacked. "What have you done?"

He thought carefully through the connotations of such an event. It may yet work in his favour, but part of him doubted how it would engineer into his plan, at the least it would give the City much needed time.

He set off with the end of his cigarette still burning. The sharp morning sun was piercing and overwhelming, with only the glint off the other cars betrayed their presence. Gale was indeed quite relieved when he turned off the motorway once again, outbound along a country road that looked almost forgotten by the world in comparison to the super highway. The trees and bushes encroached close to the road and the cars upon it, the only relief of their presence was the shade they cast upon his journey.

From here on out the road wound across the countryside, drawn upon it like a child with a marker. The road drifted around villages and rolled over hills. The route took at least an hour, maybe even more. It was a diversion that was needed, he hoped it was at least…

And as the signs began to countdown the approach to his destination it was like time had begun to slow. Every turn of the wheels became drawn out. The pressure began to mount.

Using the indicator became hard, turning the wheel was strenuous, and pulling into the hospital car park was nigh on traumatic. He stared at the entrance like it was an edifice to every piece of suffering he had experienced. Gale had every flashback hit him one after another. If he didn't have a reason not to now, he would've quite happily upended every bottle he owned.

The remaining cigarettes were smoked and the sun had crept past the trees by the time he even opened the door. Why did the sun have to shine on this day?

He lowered his sun visor before he'd undone his seatbelt. Gale caught himself adjusting his clothes and hair, sprucing himself up for the occasion. To see her one last time.

His feet felt like air as he rose to his full height, shoulder back, chin up just like they taught him. But it was a loose facade. His hands shook, his steps were more like stumbles. He knew he had to do this, yet his movements were alien even to himself. He was being pulled into the hospital doors by an invisible rope. He was ensnared.

"Mr Mayfair." The receptionist greeted him with a courteous nod. Gale looked behind him, to his sides, not even recognising his own name for a moment.

"Do I have a name badge?" He asked, a vain attempt at humour. His weak grin said it all, one that had clearly been seen a thousand times walking through those doors alone.

"Your son rang ahead to say you'd be here." they explained, their expression turned solemn briefly. "Dr Malcolm should be here in just a moment."

Gale nodded, placing his hands in his pockets. He shifted around the lobby restlessly, awkwardly. Every bone, every nerve screamed for a relief from this torment. He could feel his heartbeat quicken once again. The stress alone could've made him a patient. The noise was ear shattering

"Hello again Gale, it's been a long time." The deep bassy voice cut through the impressing sounds of the bustling hospital. Gale turned to meet a familiar, if not withered face. A warm, well practiced smile lit up the room. It was pleasant. It made everything a little better. "You look worn out."

"You look like shit." Gale deadpanned. He flashed the man a wink, one met with an open hand. Gale shook it firmly, Malcolm the same. "Good to see you again Nathan."

"If I look like shit you look far worse. Been a while hasn't it? Nearly five years I believe." Dr Malcolm gestured up the hall. The two matched step perfectly.

"Awkward to keep touch when your former squaddie is your wife's doctor." Gale's voice still held a monotone crawl, it lacked the flavour of humour from before, there was no faint smirk either. So little was left. "There's been a lot happening."

"How's the drinking?" The question shocked Gale to the point he stopped dead, he gave Malcolm a questioning look.

"Manageable…"

"Alban talks about you alot. Often to Tala. What did you think of that announce-"

"How is she?" Gale stopped again, grasping onto Malcolm's sleeve. He pleaded, he begged. "Is she awake?"

"Gale this is not something we should discuss out here." He looked Gale up and down briefly. Malcolm frowned, lowering his tone to a more understanding one. "I can understand the nerves, Gale. You have every right to be scared, but speaking to you as a friend: You know this has to be done."

Gale blinked, slightly stunned. He kept his eyes locked onto his friends, unsure whether to lash him for his words or thank him. The doctor smiled at him.

"I've known you for a long time, Gale. You've never changed." He held out his hand, gesturing for him to continue. Gale nodded, and set off. For the first time in years without a word or remark. They walked side by side for a short while in silence. Dr Malcolm straightened his shirt, finally opening to small talk. "I must say I'm surprised you were able to give up drinking so quickly."

"Subject to requirements of service, Nathan. Earliest opportunity I'm gonna drink straight out a beer pump." Gale growled. He was uncomfortable with someone being able to understand him, it felt like someone had a periscope into his mind. Like they could speak a language even he at times struggled to understand. Yet if Malcolm knew what really was going on he'd no doubt be concerned, or worse, intervene.

Finally they came to the ward. Dr Malcolm sent his greetings around, aiming for a room kept subtly out the way. He stopped just short of the door, turning to his companion.

"Take a moment. Compose your thoughts." He instructed, Gale cocked his head.

"She's that bad?" He struggled to keep his voice from cracking. The Doctor took pity on him.

"She was never even good to begin with, Gale." He took a deep breath, it was hard, even for him. He opened the door. "I must warn you, she doesn't look the best."

Gale's eyes followed the tubes and cables attached to her. The beep of her heartbeat monitor showed a very shallow throb… the last essence of her life. The gentle quivering of her chest... the only sign of breathing.

There was nothing else.

Yet in one go the pressure had all vanished. The sheer sight of her alone undid the wealth of fear and anxiety that had crept into and tainted his mind. Tala's presence alone, it meant the world.

"You must be blind Nathan… She's just as beautiful as she always was." He stepped forward, seemingly oblivious to her fearful condition. Gale just saw her, there was nothing else. "Hey Angel, it's me. I'm here."

"She can't hear you Gale," Dr Malcolm felt uncomfortable but he had to at least say it. The realisation would come in time. "I'm sorry but you've missed a lot. She's been this way for over four years now, She's not there anymore."

"Of course she is…" Gale said, his voice so much softer, he pushed a strand of wispy dark hair off of her face. He could see her smile. She was just sleeping. "She's always there."

His attention was solely on her. She tilted her head at his touch, seeming to stir. "I know I've been gone awhile but I couldn't let you see me like that. I didn't want you to think you did anything wrong."

"How about I give you some time?" Dr Malcolm looked between the two, he felt so much pity. "Both of you?"

"Think that's best, thankyou Nathan." His hand brushed down her arm, taking her hand. He gave it a squeeze and she squeezed right back. "So much has happened I don't know where to begin… Our boy has grown up massively, he's got a beard now y'know, doesn't fit him very well. Still a bit prepubescent for my liking, It's nothing like the one I had at your Mum's wedding."

He chuckled, he heard her snort lightly. "His business worked though, told you he was a genius. Your parents still have that farm, although last I spoke to them the shed roof came down on your dad's tractor. Write off I believe, but still in better condition than our flat."

"Your City is…" He trailed off, he leaned closer to the bed, his eyes slowly ran down her form. It was almost clinical in detail, it gave answers just as so. She was still.

"Tala, please..." He took her hand gently, giving it a firm squeeze. His thumb twisted her wedding ring just as she used to whenever she got nervous. He stopped when he felt how loose it was... He squeezed her frail hand again… She didn't squeeze his back.

"...Please wake up." He hated those words, he ran a caressing finger along the perimeter of her cheekbone, she didn't smile... Her face was gaunt, lacking the life she'd had when- "Tala?"

That hand found its way to her shoulder. He gave another firm squeeze and a bit of a shake. She didn't move... she was as still as she was when he- "Tala are you there?"

Gale clasped both hands around hers, rubbing them together, trying to warm her hand. That most basic of touch, he tried. They were cold. They didn't squeeze his... "Can't you feel me anymore?"

She wasn't sleeping…

Gale jumped when he felt the tear land in his lap. He focused on her.

Her face had withered away. Her fingers were boney and thin. Her hair loose, her form was gone… Part of her had died long ago, and Gale now realised which part. That presence, it wasn't there. She was only a body being kept alive now...

Merely the ache of a memory that lived only in the past.

More tears fell, and more. The wave of loneliness struck first, then the images of those memories. Happy memories. The ones he clung to, the one he had since they made them. Not one of them was without her there, even the worse times. The laughs, the fights, the fun, the tears. Even the simple mornings.

They all came, and then they were gone. In the blink of an eye, as it ever were. There could only be memories now. Ones so precious that, like an old memory, one would be fearful of replaying incase they faded.

"I thought of so much to say, but now I'm here…" Gale's voice crackled as he spoke. His tough careless façade had been shattered, but he didn't break down and weep. No, he laughed. "Do you remember when we used to steal your dad's cigarettes and watch the cars from the overpass?"

He wiped the tears from his eyes, ones that changed form. For this moment, they were from joy. How long ago had he felt joy? "If the traffic was bad we'd aim to get the stubs into car's with their roof down…"

Gale's expression of joy began to slip. He looked everywhere but at her. He could feel those memories now. The wonders of the mind overlaid them upon his world. For these moments, she was there. She smiled in the spring breeze, she jammed that air guitar in the summer, she kissed him first under the maple tree lit by moonlight...

The memories unfurled around him like a museum of their life, every moment. Happy and sad. Even the arguments played out, at least she was happy… At Least she was there… at least she was...

Just don't look…

Yet time still moved on, and like with everything, he knew in his heart the time had come… "I can't lay you to rest Tala… I just can't."

He held her hand ever tighter, yet with no less care. He could feel her joints click and crack as he pulled her hand closer to him. He caught the faint silhouette of himself upon the faded gold wedding band, sitting so loosely where it always was. He reached for his own, running his fingers across them both. "We promised each other so much, but you never made me make that one. I can't let go of you. Do it for me, please."

Tears long awaiting their time ran down his face. He gripped her fingers tightly, falling to one knee like he had done so long ago, like he had when he placed the golden ring on her finger. He finally looked at her again. "Please... die for me, Tala..." Gale's voice croaked as he spoke. With several swallows he regained enough composure to continue.

"I don't want you to suffer being stuck between here and there because I don't have the stones to call it. You lived a good life. So much has happened that I want to…" His voice trailed off as his sorrow and anguish crashed into him. His tears ran like rain. The man had long broken, only now did the final defenses fail. His walls crumbled like the temple they'd failed to protect. He locked his eyes with Tala's closed ones. He couldn't feel the love and fire she once held in them. They were cold. They were soulless.

"Please smile for me…"

He sobbed on for a long time. Doctors and nurses came and went, but he paid them no heed. His sobs let out stumbling words and begs for any amount of life to come back to her. Life was cruel. He felt every emotion come and go, all under the shadow of misery caused by being the last half of a bigger whole. Everything was tainted now. As the silence surrounded him and the feeling of the void left by the numbness of emotion filled him, he did find some semblance of peace. Peace brought through acceptance. There was nothing else he could do. All that was left was…

"The City is dying…" His voice was hoarse now, and quiet. He spoke of it to her in the hushed tones they always had. "Something happened to it. Something hurt it, something beyond human hands… I can't explain it… But it's given me an opportunity to save it. Make the dream the reality… Like we always wanted…"

Gale trailed off as he heard familiar footsteps. He dried his face on his shirt, standing awkwardly. He still held her hand. "What do you want me to do Nathan?"

"There is no easy way to say this Gale." The man looked like he was in pain, gale looked up at him. It made what needed to be said harder. "In your absence Alban has been refusing to let her… go."

"He loved his Mum more than anything else, you can't blame him." Gale saw flashes of them together, the images came so fast and with such force they made his legs weak.

"You're her next of kin. Now you are here the decision is yours." Dr Malcolm straightened his coat, taking a keen interest in some fraid threading. He didn't need to look up to feel his friend's stare. When he did, the anger in it demanded only further explanation. "Her parents died nearly two years ago Gale, we've tried reaching out to her sister but we've had no luck… She's been this way for years, Gale. If there was going to be any improvement it would've happened by now. It's delaying the inevitable, we could take action but my superiors aren't too keen on going up against-"

"How long will it take?" Dr Malcolm sighed.

"Couple of days maybe. She won't feel a thing."

"Tell your superiors if they don't have a pair of bollocks between them they shouldn't be running a bloody hospital." Gale growled. That was his farewell to his oldest friend…

Their relationship was another casualty of this war...


	18. Wish For The Night

Gale cringed as he barely swallowed a mouthful of salty water. He felt like cleaning his tongue with bleach afterward. Rather instead he crunched several strong mints, trying to dismiss the call of alcohol during such an insufferable wait, but in its absence, his solution somehow worked.

Or at least made it so withdrawal was comparatively pleasant.

The trip to dover was… forgettable, given the circumstances. The numbness had been the only presence throughout the entire journey. Only now, sitting waiting for that damn ferry surrounded by… them, did he now have some semblance of conscious thought eek into his mind.

The main one in particular: 'Turn that bloody music down.'

The presence of his fellow man in such close proximity was horrendous. Gale had tried getting a maybe an hour's rest in, yet the endless chattering and blaring music was relentless. It was like trying to sleep during a festival.

Yet Gale tuned in with some level of curiosity at one array of sounds in particular. He could catch muffled words here and there, a language he spoke. A context he understood.

"Turn that up would you." He instructed the couple in the car next to him. They gave him a curious look, before thankfully obliging.

"... Well the consensus from the scientific community is still out really. Many major research institutes are still demanding more irrefutable evidence on the matter, yet one thing that cannot be understated is the sheer number of responses it has had over one element in particular." The guest was clearly a scientist of some kind. There was a bitterness to his rather wordy response.

"In regards to this 'City'?" The radio DJ responded ever upbeat, Gale's eyebrows lowered.

"Exactly." The scientist said. "I'm amazed by it myself, the sheer amount of people, myself included, that actually know of this City… it is absolutely baffling."

"But what is it exactly?" the presenter asked intrigued. "Are we talking like Bristol, London, Reading..?"

"Don't you ever compare the City to Reading." Gale's voice was full of disgust and bile, earning him another set of unsure glances from the occupants of the vehicle he now leaned on. "...or Bristol for that matter… let alone London."

"Do you know anything about this?" The woman asked, turning the radio down. Gale nodded.

"The City is, well. It's the City… It's the only word for it, the only name it could have. Some have called it others, Heaven… Asgard… Urbe Somnia..." Gale's expression softened, in his peripheral vision he could see others listening in. He raised his voice. Finally, after so many years he had an audience. "But the City predates all of those names… It always was… Spire after Spire almost grown from glass and marble of every colour, reaching into the skies for miles under a perpetual dawning sun… Causeways of crystal and stone spanning between them. Light radiated through it in all colours, flowing through every surface. It contains the dreams and wishes of every human ever born on planet earth, every one to ever achieve true sentience. It is our home, if Earth is where our body lives. Then the City is where our soul does."

Gale smiled at the recognition on their faces. "You remember it don't you?"

"How did you know that?" The woman's partner asked, very serious. In the silence that followed one could hear the continuing discussion on the radio. The woman turned it up, as if it too had an answer.

"...Cameron from Worcestershire says 'I remember it! What do you mean others have had it?', Daisy from Bristol says 'I climbed those spires as a child, they glimmer like a geode in the sunlight… Is this a trick?' and Rachel from Wiltshire says 'I barely remember it but I had that same dream. I don't remember when they stopped…'"

"You're not the only ones who do." Gale said as the DJ continued to list off messages one after another. Gale looked around him, people watched him carefully. He had ripped the world out from underneath them. Now was the moment. That one that comes once in your life, that one that can change your tracks forever. He reached for it, he gave it his all.

This was  _ his  _ moment...

"I have spent…" He raised his voice further, to the crowd around him. "So long… waiting for a chance when I can tell people what they have done… and now…" He lit another cigarette, surveying the crowd around him. People of all forms, of all ages. Travellers and dockstaff, so many had just appeared. They looked curious, They looked scared, why wouldn't they be?

There world had changed overnight...

So they listened…

They were  _ listening _ ...

"If you could see it now… Your heart would break. Mine does every night. It's so simple its stupid. Why do you think people always say dreams are magical? Because the real dreams. The ones you are meant to have? They bloody are!" He took a long drag on his cigarette. The officer in him came back. Head up, shoulders back. This is the cause worth fighting for. "If you're scared, you should be. If you think this can't be real, you're probably right… But it is. But do not be scared of the City, be scared of what you have all done so unknowingly yet so willingly... There is no denying that fact. The City exists. The how and the why it doesn't matter. What matters now is that fear." He grabbed at the air. "Harness it. Hold it. Take it into you and let it make your heart beat. You will have a choice tonight, when you go into that rest. It's as simple as it is elegant. Don't fear falling, as much as you should not fear failing. The City always wanted to push us further, to achieve the best we can and you do that by embracing that fear. By being brave. When you dream of falling, don't fear it. Challenge it. Say to yourselves 'I will break the floor not myself!' Chant it if you have to! Believe it!"

He didn't care if they thought he was mad now. Why change the habit of a lifetime? He didn't care if they ignored him. Why change that too? Some of them were listening.

That was the change he wanted.

"I fought for this country. I bled. I made others do the same. I won the ultimate battle of wills staring down the barrel of my enemies, completely at their mercy. But not even that scares me as much as a world without the City. it defines us, it guides us. It has  _ defined  _ us, it has  _ guided  _ us. Call it god, call it the home of the Gods. It doesn't matter. The City is dying. It is one heartbeat away from death. When you dream of falling tonight don't lerch awake, go see what's at the bottom of that drop. You will be rewarded. Being brave isn't marching amongst hundreds of others, being brave is going where your mind screams at you not to."

Gale watched the few ignorant dock workers start to disperse the crowd. It was time to board. Some lingered though. To them he thanked them a thousand times, and then a thousand times more. He looked back into the car beside him, the two travellers were agasp. They slowly changed their tone though, both extending him a hand in thanks. He shrugged half heartedly, before shaking each one firmly in turn. He felt like a priest. This was his last sermon, he'd end it how he always had: "You can remember it. You must return to the City."

When Gale climbed back into the Mercedes he took a moment before firing up the engine. The cars ahead of him slowly filtered off towards the awaiting ferry as storm clouds passed overhead. He relit what remained of his cigarette, then set off. He carefully watched the approaching head of the storm as the gaping maw of the ferry grew larger and larger.

The boat rocked as he parked up, and the Mercedes locked as he walked away, abiding its master's wish and keeping itself safe for the next leg of their final journey. Gale mingled with his fellow passengers only long enough to get out to the ship's deck as it began to depart

He stood on the ship's stern, the wind in his hair as Dover sailed away from him. He slowly brought his hand up, taking a long drag on his cigarette as the ferry made headway to Calais. It was then it dawned on him, and he took a moment to close his eyes when it did.

"Goodbye." He whispered to the ever fading coastline. He aimed it at no one in particular. It was then he chose to make it ever more final.

He reached into his jacket's inside pocket, digging into its depths until he removed the jangling shards of metal from it. Keys. he flicked through them, trying to remember which ones were for his kingdom. Their shape never came to him though.

With one last check to make sure they weren't the keys for the Mercedes, he reeled back…

and let them sail off over the waves below him.

"Thankyou for being my homeland…"

He smiled as his life went with them. He didn't follow their descent, instead he focused on the shore. Across the hills and busy roads, around the towns to the cities. He looked off to the young man probably at this point going about his evening rituals.

"I'm proud of you, Alban." He whispered to him. He imagined the boy looking up at his father's voice. He imagined his smile back. "Done good you have, son."

"Like you always have…"


	19. A Life of Waiting

They offloaded from the ferry in the light of dusk. The clouds had begun their thunderous torrent hours ago, making the crossing long and miserable. When the lights of Calais broke over the horizon, Gale let out a silent cheer, and now he sat readied for his turn to disembark into the coming night.

Watching the cars and vans and lorries disembark reminded him of the starting gun for a race of a hundred different journeys. He hoped in whispered tones that, maybe some of them would take his story of gleaming towers with them. Maybe they'd believe him, maybe they'd tell others…

Maybe they'd nurture a new chapter for this tale...

It had been the gossip of the bar, the mutterings of bored crewmembers, the news, his words and his sons. Yet no one else had taken the interest to ask more, even as he sipped his salt water at the bar with the bruises on his arms exposed for all to see.

No one really cared more than idle conversation. They now proved that.

Gale fired off a thumbs up as the crewmember waved him off. Engine, In gear, Handbrake. He rolled away.

Into the night...

The checkpoint was quick. A simple wave through and no sideways look. The French autoroute unfurled ahead of him, seaming to wind around and then up into the black and silver sky at the horizon. Somewhere, in that direction, was where she was hopefully waiting.

He hadn't given Carola much thought the whole trip, his mind on the more important matters of the heart. He checked his watch as he drove, ten o'clock…

Had they done it yet? Had it started?

He loaded another cigarette into place, pushing the thoughts away that threatened to make tears breach, and made his heart race even faster. With careful breaths he pushed on. His eyes locked on that ever approaching horizon.

An hour went by.

And then another.

Several more as well, vanishing under the flickering sodium light and twisting darkness. His fellow passengers had now completely dispersed. He'd watched them peel away one after another, their own journeys just beginning. It seemed fitting he now drove the highway alone. Not like anyone else was with him. Even the rain faded long ago.

At a service station he finally caught sight of how far was left. He probably wasn't half way yet. He cursed his impatience, as well as the speed limit. With his arms filled with caffeine of various forms he made sure steps back to his stallion of the night. They rained into the footwell with a cacophony of thuds, the packets of cigarettes got far nicer treatment.

More hours rolled by, and the Mercedes rolled on, completely alone. Gale's mind had drifted long ago. His consciousness weaved through the forest of thought, hidden in the mists of fear and beset upon by the rain of hope. Yet the snap back to reality was as sharp and sudden as a slap to the face.

He reread the sign, then again. The certainty set in.

He was there.

He weaved the streets, eyes peeled on the road and on the skyline between the houses. He searched for it. It would surely stand out.

He half whooped as he saw it hove into view. The church's spire touched the heavens. It's hall sat proud just as it should, and lingering only just in shadow was the faintest of silhouettes.

"Carola." He spoke aloud, imaging her in the City, he smiled at the thought that crossed his mind, he had made it. The time had come.

Time to save his world.

Gale made the effort to roll up gently and slowly. Taking care to let her spot him first, to let her make the first move…

He slowed to a stop when she stepped forth.

The major difference he could tell from here between the Carola of the City, and the Carola of the real world was her hair. Its ebony sheen reflected the light of the street lamps, dyed silver locks were striped across it like slashes of light in the darkness. Its length was substantially shorter, only just longer than Gale's. She looked at the car as it drove past slowly, coming to a halt not far away.

"Here we go." He whispered to himself, he opened the door. In his mirror her eyebrow quirked. The expression of shock plastered her face as he stepped out. She took a step back as he slowly walked towards her. The shock in her emerald eyes was ever present. Gale could see her face had more than one scar staining it. A faint one crossed her mouth, over both her lips and up towards her nose. Another curved across her cheek, wicked scars of fights long gone.

All the minor details she refused to bring with her into the City of Dreams.

"Wie ben Je?" She snapped at him. Gale ran his hand through his hair. He took another step forward, earning a step back in turn.

"We met in the City, can't remember how long ago. At the base of the clock tower…" He said, the look of shock turned to one of suspicion. "The City is now fractured, taking its last breath."

"No, you're lying." She responded in English, earning a scowl across Gale's weathered face. He scratched the grey hairs on his chin. His look told her everything, she took a step forward. "Gale?"

"Hello Carola." His long ragged voice croaked. He took a step forward as well, closing the distance between them to a few meters.

"How have you done this?" she asked him, still suspicious. Gale took a deep breath.

"In the city, we are who we are inside. How we see ourselves. Same as you don't see yourself with those two scars…" Gale said, she looked away, hiding them in the profile of her face that remained untouched. "I… I should've explained."

He trailed off for a moment.

"In the City, I am who I was when I met my wife… Forty years ago…" he finished, Carola's eyes grew wide again. She cocked her head, surveying the aged man infront of her. She searched for signs of the Gale she knew.

"So how old are you, really?" she asked, her words careful. Gale looked down.

"I probably should have said when we met…" He looked back up, Carola gestured for him to continue. "I'm Sixty seven."

Carola looked on in shock. She slowly found her words.

"So you're over… three times… my age?" She spoke aloud. "That's creepy at best… Man I thought you were a lot younger…"

"What's the point of living out your desires and dreams if you have to do it with a zimmer frame?" Gale asked, his voice completely flat. She recognised the tone. The mannerisms were there. She was silent for a moment, eventually she nodded.

"So tell me, Gale. What do we do?" Carola's voice was firm. Gale could see the woman from the City return to her, as he returned to himself.

"You're ok… with this?" He asked, still unsure himself.

"Have no choice, do I if we want to get this done. But..." Carola said, she reached into her inside pocket, pulling an object out just enough for him to see. She gestured at the still hidden scars. "I learned the hard way, I am always prepared."

"At least you feel safe." He said, he rapidly back pedalled. "Not to sound creepy, you have a Browning after all."

Carola quirked an eyebrow as he turned back to the car, his back wide open.

"How you know it's a Browning?" she asked as she followed him. He looked back over his shoulder, stumbling briefly on the pavement before coming to stand at the cars side.

"I've done my time carrying one for my country, don't you worry." He said with a smile. She came up beside him. Gale smiled and pointed over the car. "That side, it's British."

She muttered a long stream of curses in her mother tongue, as she walked round the car. She looked back over the roof to see Gale chuckling away.

"It is an overly proud lump of German crap you're right." He said with a smile. She was silent again, her eyebrow cocked. He threw his arms out. "C'mon do you really think at sixty seven I wouldn't have learned some languages?"

Carola stood still at the door, she had a frustrated frown on her face, and it showed in her tone. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere where we can work undisturbed."

Carola was doubtful for a moment, she glanced over her shoulder. Then all around. She savoured the what she felt would be the last moments she'd spend in her hometown. She only entered the car as it's engine roared back to life.


	20. You'll Never be Forgiven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Urrrghhh.... You get the idea by now  
> Trigger  
> Warning.  
> something something broken f[CENSORED]king record....

Their drive was in relative silence. The roads were silent, even the hum of the Mercedes' engine seemed quieter. A few short conversations bounced between the two of them, the question wasn't asked until Gale armed another cigarette.

"You got a spare?" Carola asked as he brought the lit lighter up. Gale didn't respond until he was puffing out smoke.

"Yeah." He practically grunted, opening the arm rest. Gale's eyes were locked on the road and he didn't even notice the minutes go by while she waited for the lighter. "Abit keen to get in a car with a stranger aren't you?"

"You're not a stranger Gale." She stated with confidence, nodding as he tossed the lighter into her lap. "We might have only just met in person, but we've been in the City for awhile now... that has to count for something right?"

She only got a grunt in return, he was focusing on the road. Leading them out of town. "Don't really care what happens to be honest…"

"Bit of a grim outlook at what was it, twenty two?" He asked, finally looking at her. She was sad. The wound was still fresh.

"Got nothing else have I?" She took a long drag on her cigarette, she cradled the smoke. Seemingly taking a fascination in it drifting through her fingers. "She took everything when she left."

"Hard to save your world when there's nothing left to save." He wanted to see how far this bitterness ran, not too far he hoped. One of them had to have a reason for this.

"The phrase is saving  _ the  _ world. Not saving  _ your _ world."

"No that's wrong." He earned a glare from that. "Why go out of your way to save someone you don't know about? Why go and donate money to someone you've never met. Save your world Carola, the people who love you.. Because there are always people who love you. That is your world, and it is all that's worth saving."

They were silent. A thoughtful silence no doubt. It all made sense to him now. He nodded, understanding entirely. He reached back behind his seat, scrambling for something he swore he'd taken from the ferry. She gave him a curious look, a look which got answered when he passed her a folded newspaper.

"Give that cover a read." He hoped the distraction would work. She seemed to frown at him, like his sudden change of topic wasn't what she had expected. Carola huffed quitely, and scanned the title. She donned a look of surprise, followed by awe.

"What did you do?" She asked, reading the simple phrase upon it. One that Gale himself had frowned at: 'Do you remember it?'

"My Son announced its existence to the world."

"That's good right? The City might come back to life?" She sounded hopeful. She cursed lightly as they hit a pothole a little too firmly.

"The damage is already done. The City can't exist in that world anymore." He said simply, he drew on confidence with no evidence.

"So what's the plan, gov?" She asked, throwing the paper onto the dashboard. She snuck another cigarette. "And why did you need to cross several hundred miles to do it?

"If we can sever that last connection, then bring the City into the real world. People seeing it, and actually being able to go to it without having to grow a spine might just give it the life needed to live again." His confidence had faded. He was clutching at straws. "I have no idea if it'll work, or if it will just kill it for good. It's hard to explain, I think we have to try... But trust me, if it fails… It'll be a helluva show."

Gale gave her a look of hurt as she clicked the lighter. He snatched it from her mouth, claiming it as his own. Carola shot him a cocky smile, twirling another stolen white cylinder in her fingers.

"Where are we going?" She asked as she puffed out more smoke.

"Somewhere with a field." He responded, turning the Mercedes off the roads onto a less beaten track.

"Good choice, no one comes here." Carola said with a smirk, she turned to her companion. "Why do we need a field?"

"I don't want anyone to see what we're going to do." Gale responded, only after, did he realise how suspicious he sounded. Carola reached into her jacket, pulling the firearm free and resting it in her lap. Gale chuckled. "No not like that. Imagine how much people would panic if they saw a Shardship land in their garden."

"You crashed it, remember? Going senile aswell are we Gramps?"

"Dad... Alban doesn't have a bratling yet thank god." He grumbled, finally parking the car and turning off its engine. "You can sleep on the backseats if you want."

"Taken!" She said, jumping from the car eagerly. It seemed she was driven to see the plan come to fruition. Not much after they both felt the tug of the City.

* * *

They felt a wind blow against their exposed skin as they awoke in their armour clad bodies. Carola watched Gale's body reassemble from ash on the bridge they had last been upon. The City's shattered skyline framed the horizon behind them, the thick fog clouded everything ahead of them, the bridge's determined span all that dared breach it.

They both heard the echos. Sounds eeking across the otherwise silent world. They both turned back in turn, looking into the depths of the City in search for the echoing heartbeat. They were not alone.

"Is that?" Carola asked, doubting her own instincts. Gale let out a long whistle at the sight ahead, whilst Carola herself put her hands to her mouth in shock.

The drifting district of the City descended from its place in the World's sky, turning gently in its slow descent. The spires upon it fell in reverse, rushing up to forge once again as a single whole. Debris set into their old places, the cracks and splits between them withdrew and faded. Their paths were replaced with stone of every colour.

Like scar tissue on their towers themselves, they held their new form with pride.

The city rumbled with a thunderous crash as the district rested back into its former position, merging seamlessly into the whole, the decay still crept and tainted the land, yet even with so few to witness it, the City fought back.

The damage could not be fully undone. Debris still scattered the air and the causeways. Distant districts still hung suspended in their death, whilst others still foundered in the abyss below. All the while little coloured spots wove between the many towers, insects in the great garden of the gods.

"We have to be quick." Gale stated. He reached for his waist, pulling away the inert crystal upon it. "Before too much of the City's power returns."

He held it out to her, she watched the cracks and faded surfaces start to glean again, it was awakening from it's forgotten slumber.

"Grab it." He instructed, she threw him a look, but the urgency could not be avoided. She reached to the crystal, holding it weakly. At her touch it flashed to life. it's surfaces sheened, its colour returned. It was as new again.

"Think of that little ship." he instructed. He held the air of authority well. "Call it with me."

To any watching their curious stance must've been moreover humorous. Yet to those listening, the call was rhythmic. It sounded out across the spires, echoed through their great halls. It melded into the City's own quiet song, funneling its will to that debris field, it's notes weaved between each shard, weaving them together like threads between pieces of fabric...

Those new explorers walked it with wonder. They surveyed the fallen debris scattered across such a massive area. The spire's stump was growing back, yet its reach into the sky was slow. They ran their hands along the debris, in awe as it seemingly healed beneath their touch.

That amazement turned to surprise as it began to shift suddenly. Pieces jumped into the air like dolphins from the sea. Landing back with a splash of dust and rubble. They watched it with an entertained curiosity. With each jump pieces smashed together. They sang. They healed.

They barely ducked as it leapt together into a whole. The Shardship imploded back into a single piece in one bound, launching above their heads with a vigour of a new life. It's flight was graceful yet energetic. It's arch into the sky could be seen across the City, it cast glowing blue plumes behind it. Ethereal jet trails from an ethereal machine.

"This is the nasty part." Gale said as he saw the vessel crest the towers. He looked at his companion, almost sorrow filled. "We wake up, together."

"How? Wait until the sun comes up?" She asked, hopeful. Yet it wasn't enough.

"Won't be quick enough…" He said, the Shardship closed in. He pointed at his neck. "You know how… You've already done it once."

"Oh come on there must be another way." She looked horrified, Gale shook his head.

"Ever tried waking yourself up?" He said simply. He held his hand out with trepidation. "I'll be gentle. Do not let go."

It was a grim sight. The Shardship sped towards them as they reached out. The feeling was alien to them both. It was wrong, yet they both squeezed only as much as needed. They both worked gently as they began to choke. They didn't notice the eyes watching them, their vision on eachother, they watched as one another faded into dust.

On a distant island, on the distant clear ocean, the World Tree came alive. One by one scattered buds began to bloom, their crystal flowers opened of all colours, glistening in the orange hues of the dawn. Yet no eyes came to see it, the scattered light illuminated the Tree like it was glowing, its roots grew further into the City's bedrock.

Those that came, began to wake it.

The City began to live again.

* * *

They woke up gasping and flailing. The pressure only relieved when they realised their hands were free. They coughed and wretched as the air filled their lungs once again. They wheezed for a long while, their throats were marked…

...and their hands were cold.

The feeling of stone was overwhelming. It radiated a heat that felt alive, yet it was a heat that rapidly cooled. They both looked at their hands respectively, the crystal prism was sheared in twain, yet nonetheless…

It had crossed to their world.

They both scrambled out the car, leaving the doors wide they charged into the open field. Carola tossed her piece to her companion, Gale snapped it from the air with trained precision.

He slammed the broken ends together, causing it to flash with a blinding light. It sent out a punch of air that rippled the grass and shook the trees, leaving a crater of blown down overgrowth. Its light faded to an ebbing strand, sparks shot inwards from the cracked perimeter. It was still broken, yet he held it whole.

And then held it aloft.

The world was eerily silent.

Their breathing was still heavy, as they watched the skies they hoped and prayed. A faint crack sounded out in the darkness, they watched as the crystal began to fracture and dissolve into the wind.

"Comeon!" Gale bellowed, Carola jumped back, eyeing him carefully. She scanned the skies again and again.

And they both cheered.

It screached through the sky alight with fire.

They watched the bright ball of fire begin to descend. It trailed like a comet, yet instead of burning out it only grew brighter. The orange flame it cast out dulled for favour of its long, blue flight-giving trail...

It slashed through the clouds, cutting them in twain with ease. They roared in victory as the crystal in Gale's hands glowed equally bright from its core.

It came to their call...

It came eager, it came with pride.

The air rippled once more as it came to a hover. The Shardship scattered the light of the distant streetlights, illuminating the grass and trees beyond with facets of colour.

It was here, it had come.

The duo ran its perimeter in disbelief as it settled to the ground. Carola slapped herself, thinking it couldn't be here. Gale just reached for it, his fingers touching it truly for the first time. It was soft. Like a wild animal he ran his hands across its stony surface. The light blue crystal of its hull shone brightly. It purred at them, awaiting them. Carola leaned her head on its snout, she listened for it. It was here, it was alive.

He snapped his fingers, and it responded to his call. Its canopy opened wide. Its cockpit shifted, and it awaited them as the decay set upon it. Yet it would not yield.

It had crossed between worlds...

It would never yield.

"Let's get this done old friend…" He whispered to it as he climbed upon its surface. He reached to his comrade, offering her the hand atop it. The vessel hummed louder and louder as they scrambled upon its surface. Gale dropped himself into its flight seat as Carola did exactly the same. It was comfortable, even if it was made of glass. Gale's hand rested on a panel, letting the canopy close above them. Their eyes of the real world could barely see through it. It wasn't made for them.

And slowly cracks began to web its surface.

"Well then, straight up…" Carola said to it with a hint of cheer.

Gale held the crystal out, then slightly upwards, the vessel launched. Chasing its direction rapidly. The motion made their heads spin. It rushed through the air faster than a jet, launching them from the field, rapidly leaving it behind in a shimmer of trailing light.

Those few that saw it in flight began to fathom how alien their world was becoming...

In moments they were high enough that the dawning sun appeared on the distant horizon, past the curvature of the Earth. The cloud covered night rapidly began to fracture. After a few seconds of clouded bleakness the sky gave way for the twinkling lights of the stars.

The vessel tore through the atmosphere, igniting its surfaces once again for the briefest seconds. The flames faded away into nothing. It had surpassed the bounds of Earth.

And as they began to choke on the void once again… they passed onwards into the world beyond.

* * *


	21. Song of The Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm just gunna put it in the story description now... coming up with humourous trigger warnings here is testing my patience and my grammar.

The stars suddenly gave way for dark clouds, and the air became instantly breathable once again. They flew up the eye of an unfathomable storm, yet the twisted tunnel of clouds were still. Ahead of them at the end of the clouds was nothing but flame-shrouded light, and behind nothing but darkness. Its true nature was unknown, it was merely just a gateway. A gateway that should never have been reachable.

For mile after mile the clouds turned from dark grey into a muted silver. The world around them eventually grew brighter, dyed a more vibrant orange hue with every minute that came by.

It still only grew brighter, and it burned. They both shielded the eyes as much as possible, the heat began to rise, the burning light hurt.

Yet as quickly as this luminescence came upon them it too vanished...

Their eyes weren't open when the city's Skyline appeared before them. When they finally looked upon it the dawning sun hung behind them. The glorious skyscape of the long Fallen City rose from afore them. They were both in silent awe as they descended slow upon it. The rising spires were like shards of brilliant crystal, reflecting amuted light in rays as if through a thin fog. Their shadow ran across the towers and boulevards, across the rippling ocean and eventually faded to as another within the mighty City.

"That's the…" Carola had tears in her eyes, as Gale himself was still speechless. His eyes cast themselves upon the Spires once more as if for the first time.

They couldn't hear the song of the City, yet they felt its emotion. It welcomed those that fought for it with a view that would stain their vision forever.

Even the sight of it looked new. The vessel curved down, flying between the broken tips of many towers, and the remaining tops of others. Each of them was ensnared and encompassed with a tranquil mist, one only viewable by earthly eyes. The decay was ever retreating, the cracked and desolated ruins, the corpses of Humanity's imagination had regained a spark of life. The towers' silent flatlined beat reached that of a faint pulse, one marked by the flow of faded colour through its flesh and bone. As aliens in this world, it was only amongst them he could hear them.

Each spire sang a different song, they hummed with the radiance of a thousand solos, each one that passed by sang to them. Even after every day that he slept and walked the City, Gale had never heard such a resonance before. This song was sung from the City's will or power, but the wind echoing through the empty halls. It resonated up each spire and reverberated down the causeways. It was a song born of pure nature.

"It's beautiful… How could we ever make this?" Carola dried the tears on her shirt, Gale turned his head back to her, he had tears too.

"We all did." His eyes never left the cityscape. "How could they ever abandon it? Who could ever, either willingly or unwillingly, destroy this place..."

Now that they were here the whole experience was different. The towering spires of the City's heart fell away behind them, casting them across the crystal clear ocean. The water shimmered anew, even as it hung low and drained. The seabed breaking its surface glimmered with the sparkling light of a distant prism, a distant light. The sea radiated it upwards, its surface like a deep sapphire. it was without a ripple. It too was now pure.

As they made headway for the City's distant edge they came across it through good fortune alone. Like a tour of the City's greatest landmarks…

He had to see it once more.

And he could on the horizon, The Tree rose like a lump on the water. Its lower canopy glistened even from this distance, sparkling in the light of the perpetual dawn. The ShardShip skimmed the water's surface, kicking up a long trail of spray once more, marking a path like a pen with foam.

Gale's mouth dropped wide as they saw the Tree in bloom. Its crystal flowers scattered light of a thousand colours across the clear ocean. It radiated back up from its crystal bottom, reflected like an eternal mirror. Each flower told its own story, another believing in the wondrous land humanity had crafted from its beginning. The tree waved to them as they passed. The flowers shimmered and glistened, some falling from it in a snow of sparkling light, igniting the roots in all colours.

The ShardShip rushed towards the City's main district. The water gave way for the coastline interwoven with stone and crystal. It's surface's cracks withdrew slowly. People walked its causeways, flew between the buildings, and as Gale watched towers began healing themselves even further. Their shards soared upwards to their peaks, whilst those cast afloat drifted down to merge to the greater whole with titanous rumbles unheard by all else.

Humanity, at least some of it, had returned to the World of Dreams, the City Inbetween. Yet it wouldn't be enough.

Despite the healing, despite the glory they had witnessed since flying its skies once more, albeit totally anew… It's death rattle was ever present.

A spire ahead of him began to lean, its base letting lose a shroud of debris as it collapsed onto its neighbour. The impact showered the second spire with broken crystals, rocks, metals and dreams. Covering its surface in a web of cracks and pits and splinters as its neighbour broke apart, crashing to the causeway far below. The assailant crashed to the ground, whilst the defender stood barely upright.

It wasn't enough...

"Hurry it Gale. Let's not fail now…" Carola ordered, and sure enough the City whipped by faster and faster. She saw some people fly alongside them, only to peel off into the depths of the City's skyscape. The bridge appeared ahead of them. They made for ground, swooping the vessel down the causeway to its end.

Someone was awaiting them.

The vessel had slowed but it still rushed over their head as they raised their hand in greeting. Curving around gently it set lay between the arches, slowly descending down the bridge. Coming to a peaceful rest at their side, the canopy opened before it had made touchdown.

"Whose that?" Carola mumbled as they disembarked. their form was muted in the haze that filled the City. Like the twists and turns of dreams hid their being. Gale watched the apparent stranger carefully.

"Dad?" The voice asked the man staring him down. He looked little different from when he left. In that world it was unnerving.

"Alban." Gale held his hand out to him. "Welcome to the City."

His flightsuit clad son seemed hesitant. Not just because of the affection but the gauntlet like mit that covered his hand. "You can't hurt me Son."

On touch the mit began to rust and rot under Gales bare skin. The decay was thick, yet it remained whole. Gale looked down, and yet sure enough. There, under boot, even on the Bridge itself their footprints were of cracks and dust. They didn't belong there…

Gale smiled. His plan might just work.

For the moment though, something else mattered more.

"You have something to say." Gale was stern. Carola watched as Alban gave a halfhearted shrug. Gale's body stiffened briefly in a mix of rage and pain.

"You were right, I was wrong. The way you've been is also wrong. I have nothing to say." Alban's eyes panned across the world around him. He took it all in, there was so much to learn, and so much to unlearn now. "Cory wants to get you sectioned."

"There you are Carola, after a lifetime of telling people the truth, they still think you're mad." Gale waved off the comment, even if his companion looked on with hate in her eyes.

"You're just letting that happen? Even with all the proof?" She spat.

"You can't ever change someone's opinion, so there's no point even trying." He grunted, Alban watched his Dad carefully, the man was surveying his surroundings. Seeing it through fresh eyes the next steps unfolded in front of him. The argument was carefully tuned out. The whistling wind in the City, the only thing that spoke to him.

He took careful steps up the bridge. His steps were shaky, in fact every movement had an unnatural jerk to it. He came to its threshold. The vast expansive skyline caught the light like it was backed by a dawning supernova. The faintest wisps of colour straddled the towers, tiny black smudges marked the presence of others, living out their dreams in this once forgotten world.

He almost considered leaving it as is. The City had a new form now, and even seemed to have regained a new life. Yet as the balance of probabilities moved into its favour a distant tower crumbled away. There was no echoing crash, the rubble and debris merely drifted into the sky around it. The new world was being built upon the bones of the ancestors'…

That could  _ not _ be allowed.

Under inspection it was an endless war. Towers would rebuild and regrow, yet the tainted decay would strip them bare equally quickly. All the while their tainted presence lay footsteps of ruin across its strongest bastion. The flowing light scattered underfoot, illuminating his and Carola's bodies with a million coloured facets.

He knelt down, running his fingers with care across the crystal surface. Runes and symbols of all languages adorned its surface, telling the tale of the City for all who spoke it.

Under his touch it cracked and splintered, no matter how gentle he was. Only enough to tarnish its pure, unbroken surface. He could draw on it like a painting, one that would last for all time.

He brought his fist down upon it, no harder than one smacking their hand on a table. Yet he might as well have gone at it with a jack hammer. The surface ignited with a brilliant flash of lightning, fading in a blink of an eye to leave nothing but scarring cracks across its engraved surface.

The pain throbbed in his hand as Gale pulled it back, surveying the damage. It felt so wrong to lay harm upon it, yet he argued it like the greatest of leaders. It would have to be a worthy sacrifice, no matter the outcome.

"It's no decision for one man to make." Alban called from behind him, he looked back to see Carola approach him. "Leave this place as it is. It'll serve its purpose for a new world, nothing more."

"I had to tell him… He worked it all out." Carola explained as she knelt beside him. She took a glance back at Alban. "He's a clever sod."

"The material composition of the City is not of our world Dad, it cannot exist in it. If people doubt it, and don't forget that most will, after a few hours it'll be barely dust!" He explained, very firm, and very clear. "You are sending this place to a quick demise. Get on that ship and come home."

"The Shardship made it!" Gale barked back, pointing to the awaiting craft, patient and loyal as always. "And we're alive alright aren't we!"

Alban matched his tone without hesitation. "Look how much damage that thing has!"

"The City has proven that when people believe in it it gains strength!" Gale swept his arm over the towers. "They were nearly all smashed to hell and back only days ago! This place was dead and now look!"

"I know Dad I saw it…" Alban paced towards him, his steps undoing Gale's own of decay and ruin. "Leave it be. Let it be, even in its current condition it is a wonder that will drive mankind to a new dawn."

"It's not enough!" Gale turned to Carola, his tone entirely changed like the argument never happened. "It hurts, but it'll break through."

"Why use hands?" She asked, spinning up onto her feet. Gale smirked as she drew out her pistol, arming it and primed. He recognised the motions of an experienced wielder. She looked back. "Ready?"

"Trust me. Please. Don't do this." Alban begged. Yet he was ignored.

Gale reeled back, as Carola levelled her weapon across the Bridge's width. As his fist came down she fired.

The crunch of bone on stone was punctuated by the crash of a gunshot. The bridge flashed bright, the cracks weaved its surface to flash again once more. Cartridges clattered against its surface cracking it further with each landing, as flicks of blood splashed from Gale's already torn fist. Each drop aswell left a splash of red surrounded by a small halo of ruin. They were insignificant compared to the damage of their masters, the bridge's surface split like a spider web. Not emanating far. Yet nonetheless the damage persisted.

They worked in time, hit after hit. Shot after shot.

With another strike it grew wider.

And another.

The City felt it. Towers rumbled and shook under each impact. Like the walk of ancient titans the City rippled under its strength. Light flickered throughout, the bridge itself eamed to ebb with even more colour, it was fighting back.

"Enough!" Alban shouted, smacking the weapon from Carola's hand. He caught Gale's bloodied fist, dragging the man onto his back even as he gasped in pain. He was face to face over him. "This has gone too far! No further!"

Gale growled, his face slowly contorted into a snarl. He drove his free hand up, connecting his fist to Alban's chin in a blow that made his whole body lurch back. From both force and surprise, the look on his son's face was, understandably, one of utter betrayal.

Alban stepped back as his father got to his feet, brandishing a bloodied hand with a pointed finger at him. He didn't say a word, the gesture alone meant it all. Alban kept back peddling until he found himself at the bordering wall of the City.

Gale grimaced in pain, he closed his fist once more, hearing the joints crack loudly...

That was Alban's last image of his father. He watched the man turn, reeling back once more. He leant back on the wall in defeat, at least he'd tried. A tear flowed into the blood on his chin. He mourned the turn of events.

Alban felt the tug of the real world, even as he begged to stay and see it through. The descent of that fist seemed so slow. His last sight in that City was its impact, shattering up its length it exploded in shards of glass and crystal. The ebbing flow of colour morphed into a sheer flash of explosive light…

As his vision faded away, and the sensation of waking began to hit…

Most strangely, he felt the cool of that wall still as his mind transferred from one world to another. Yet before his eyes opened he felt it part…

Where it went he didn't know.

* * *


	22. The Falling City

Alban sighed as he opened his eyes. The light of the orange dawn sun stung with unrelenting bitterness. The bustle of the street below encroached like a marching army. He swung his legs over the bed's edge, the various bottles adorning the floor clattered as he went.

He placed his head in his hands. Then pulled them away as he felt the cool flow of blood on his chin. He had a mix of shock and concern flow through his every nerve...

Then realisation hit him like a truck.

Alban sprung to his feet, cradling his aching head as he heard the sudden sound of shouting from the world below. He scrambled over his father's still boxed belongings, shoving the stained and rotten curtain out the way.

People. The street was full of them. They came out of the buildings, they stepped out of their cars, they looked at the sky, some ran, some cradled each other. Others watched their phones, filming something up in the sky.

Glancing at the sky, Alban scrambled over everything once again at full speed. He barged through his father's front door and hurriedly jumped the last steps on the stairs.

He wheezed as he reached the outer world, and looked on in absolute shock.

The slowly growing prism was muted blue through the earth's skies. Clouds might cover it, constructs of man may obscure it. Yet above it all, it materialised without force or effect.

Slowly, in the space above the Earth, the City became unveiled to the light of a new sun.

Above the sky, unbound by the taint of the atmosphere, a wall of fog emanated outwards from the City's heart, its edge ran like fire, but its form was more of water, flowing like an unfaltering wave over the City. The spires immediately outshone any other mortal creation, appearing one after another above the planet's surface. They blotted out the stars, they hid the moon, and hung like a roof of crystal and stone across the waking world.

The spires reached down from the City toward the Earth that birthed it, the many boulevards and causeways cast patterns across its surface akin to artwork as the fog withdrew to reveal more of humanity's masterpiece. For each eye that fell on the City its colour returned. As it was born into our world, it became whole again. The spires shod their patina and brought forth the great fascias and murals that defined them each. It smiled on its new world, whole in form and function once again.

On the remains of the bridge's great span the scorching wave approached them, it was fear inducing. A force of nature rushing their way that claimed the City from its world. The two dreamers were barely at their feet when it hit them to the ground once again. They were all it truly harmed. Pain laid on top of pain, the wave of fire scorched their hair and clothes, debris in its wake lashed their skin like a thousand razors. They were left gasping, burned and bloodied, staring up at the pure orb of the Earth. Their breaths were sharp, yet true. Their reward for their actions was mortal peril.

Gale began to laugh painfully. The pain in his chest was escalating, combined with the agony of every muscle and bone. He saw an arm point to the world above them.

"There's home." Carola choked, tears in her eyes at the tranquil world turning below. Gale patted the stone floor he'd landed on, he watched the mosaics and patterns rewrite themselves.

"Here's mine." He croaked. He glanced back up the bridge's span, its end, the ShardShip, its arches. They were all left behind, to remain as silent vigil to that world for all time. The remains it brought with it drifted upwards slowly, casting themselves into space under the power of an unseen force.

It took a lot of work for the battered and aging man to even get to his knees. He couldn't even muster the words to get his companion to look at the restored City. It stunned him, it shocked him, and when it couldn't get any more incredible, it did.

On Earth it was far less tranquil. People panicked and watched as thousands and thousands of towers proved their existence once again to humanity. Appearing above their world, they then silenced every voice. A rumble sounded out that echoed even into space itself. The massive geode suddenly erupted with light of all colours. It streamed through every broadwalk, down every causeway and over every skywalk. It flowed into the Spires and ignited them with a flowing mirage of coloured light encased in their crystal form. It all flowed from a single point within the City itself now. Its will was strong, it was faultless in form.

Deep within the City, upon an ocean that rose steadily from its seabed. Millions upon millions of flowers bloomed upon the City's great tree. It glowed bright like a captured star on the ascending ocean. The flowers twinkled as they too rose from the tree, falling towards the new world like seeds in the wind, granting humanity its gift. A reward for its return.

One last marvel.

The remaining decay rapidly withdrew, spires regrew like plants and entire districts rose from the nothingness, tearing through into the mortal world to join the cliffs that marked their original end. They connected with deafening crashes and thunderous shaking, brought forth from another world to become a part of the greater whole.

The people of earth watched on, with bated breath. They awaited the mysterious object's intent. Many found themselves suddenly awake on its causeways. Now its crowning moment had come, the City's restoration turned to refinement. With new believers it formed many thousands of miles of new districts, towers grew like shoots from a seed, rising to touch a sky no longer existing above it.

"You did it Dad..." He whispered, standing a silent watch over the now complete City of Dreams.

He found the sight beautiful. The young man envied those in orbit, seeing the spectacle clear and free of Earth's whisper. Its magnificence was in the air of beauty and power that emanated from it, cast and formed by the dreams of its current and former inhabitants.

Yet it had brought so much sorrow, so much pain it was hard to look at, even if it drew their gaze like a rabbit in headlights. That sight might've been beautiful, yet it had taken so much away. In giving life his dream, his father had taken it from what should've mattered… "What did it do that I didn't?"

And now it was there to gloat until the end of them all...

It took minutes for peace to fall on the two worlds. The City hung present and true over its creators. The hum of the towers sounded out into the great darkness, to those that walked it, it sung songs of hope. To those that looked up, its reflections shone down on the earth with radiant rays of flickering light. Gale and Carola clasped each other's hand, holding it high in triumph. Their mission was over.

They had done it.

Then that bell rang...

Gale's heart immediately stopped. Horror and terror stained his face. It rang throughout the City, it echoed off every spire and broke into every room. No matter how far. It rang across the Ocean, it sounded over the Cityscape, It echoed over the highest and most distant crystal mountains.

"No!" He barked. "No Don't! _We saved you_!"

It rang down to the Earth itself.

"Gale!" Carola shouted, pointing to a distant spire. The tallest of its many neighbours.

It's peak slowly tore apart in the folds of an unseen force. Bound for the first time to a will beyond its magnitude, it came undone. The fragments were torn from its pinnacle, slowly descending down into a cloud of debris that consumed it.

Gale strained himself up to standing, he and Carola grasped each other's shoulder, holding themselves up. With stumbling steps, he hurriedly led them off the bridge. Their eyes never left the dissolving tower far far away.

"Your flightboard!" He barked, leaning upon the wall, barely able to stand alone. Carola summoned the discarded board amongst the shattered crystal. She'd hardly remembered where it'd gone. She threw it to the floor, in the vain hope it would still abide to her will. "Get us to the clock tower!"

They both somehow clambered onto that small board, it took their weight well. Carola swept up its crystal and plunged it forward. The force knocked them back, yet their feet held firm. To guide them through the City's towers with the buffeting wind was a mission in itself.

They rushed along the causeways and boulevards all restored upon humanity's potential. People appeared below them of all ethnicities and beliefs. They all had looks of amazement and wonder on their faces as they took in the City around them and the blue orb of Earth hanging precariously above them. They could feel what it was, its emanating truth. Rapidly the City's population climbed. Word had spread, everyone now knew of its presence.

And all the while, unnoticed by many, the spires continued to sunder.

"Please… no." Gale whispered. He begged, more than ever before.

Alban had watched the cloud cover the City. He frowned at the mystery of unknown form and purpose. The man beside him caught his attention, he had been using a camera, capturing this moment for the future rather than living this moment forever. Yet he now seemed terrified. White like a ghost...

Like a dead man walking...

Before he could ask the rumble sounded. He looked back to the heavens at hundreds of flares igniting the sky. They streamed across with reckless abandon, raining destruction upon them.

"Please… No." His plea was as unheard as his fathers, begging destiny itself rather than his fellow man.

Alban followed the closest fireball down behind the houses of the highstreet. The ground shook. The air compressed and ruptured, shattering windows and cracking the concrete. Alban's ears rang as they burst, knocking him back.

As his gaze came back up, he stared into the approaching wave of fire…

He too, a dead man...

They crashed into water.

Having cleared the City to the ocean they ploughed into the suspended globules at full speed. It hit them hard enough to white them out, to knock the air from them and crush and crack their ribs. They fell from one to splash into and slow-fall through another, coming to a comparatively slow yet forceful rest upon the ocean's now bare floor. They crashed down fast and hard. The impact knocked them back to consciousness. They were broken.

Carola dragged herself across the smooth seabed. Blood poured from her head and seeped out across her body. When she came to Gale's side she didn't help him, rather she drove her elbow down hard on his chest, causing the man to coil up and roar with absolute agony. She silenced him with one shout: "What have you done!"

Gale pulled himself barely sitting up. It was the last of all his strength. The world was fading in and out of black. Something had made his clothes heavy, as he moved, they left marks of shining red behind.

He let loose tears of horror and fear as they watched the spires come free of their foundations, they broke and dashed themselves upon one another like sand in the wind. The torrent of rising debris reached up unbound to the Earth's atmosphere, igniting the skies with an endless barrage of fire. Flashes of light illuminated even its darkness, waves of fire spread across the terrain. Smoke choked the skies.

Chunks torn from the causeways started twisting and folding up into each other, being pulled from their places by the truest forces of nature and erupting into a rising shower of desolation. The fragments joined the ascending spires on a relentless march towards the doomed world. The City began to rip. The City had to sunder.

"I am so sorry." Gale wept, watching the spires rise up around them. The crashing of unnature was silenced by the largest cracks yet. They sundered the very bedrock the City rose from. It learched suddenly, the Earth began to grow closer. It had all come to an end. Gale began to wheeze. His vision began to fade. He choked as the air faded from the City. "I was wrong…"

He managed to find the last strength in his voice, sending his final words to the burning world above them.

"I thought that it would save us!" he cried, unheard...

**As the City continued to Fall…**

**-/-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankyou for taking the time to read my story. Our time on this Earth is limited, and to know that you have spent some of it with me in the City... it means more than anything. If you enjoyed I am truly honoured, if you didn't then I am still none the less glad that you stuck it out to the very end. Thankyou, again. Take care, and all the best for the future. -Tärren-James Hardvard (TJ-Taz)


End file.
